Raycom hopes to continue SEC ties

• By SCOTT RABALAIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:40 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

DESTIN, Fla. — Though the SEC’s TV football contracts end after the 2008 season, there’s little reason to expect that the conference won’t be on CBS and ESPN again in 2009.

There is one burning TV question, though: Will the SEC continue to have 11:30 a.m. games syndicated by Raycom, or could the conference decide to follow the Big Ten’s lead and launch its own in-house, all-sports network?

Raycom’s Jimmy Rayburn, representing the network this week here at the SEC Spring Meeting, said he expects the conference to decide by the end of the year.

“Either we’re going to have something fairly similar to what we have now or something fairly different: a subscriber-based channel,” Rayburn said Tuesday.

Rayburn said Raycom, the Charlotte, N.C.-based network which televised SEC and ACC sports, is positioned to do either should the SEC wish to continue their relationship.

Raycom acquired Lincoln Financial Sports last November. Lincoln acquired the SEC’s longtime TV partner, Jefferson Pilot Sports, in 2005.

“Obviously we hope if there’s a channel we’re involved with it,” Rayburn said. “If there’s not, we hope to continue what we’re doing.

“We like to think we’re somewhat unique, in that we can follow either path that they (the SEC) choose.”

Rayburn said there are some risks if the SEC goes in-house, considering the problems the Big Ten and NFL have had so far at distributing their networks to cable companies. The Big Ten Network started in August, while the NFL Network debuted in 2006.

“I’m sure at this time a year ago the Big Ten would have thought they would have had much more distribution than they got,” Rayburn said.

“Before you think it’ll be a layup for the SEC, well, it wasn’t for the NFL.”

Rayburn said all of Raycom’s SEC football games, and most of its SEC basketball games, will be televised in high-definition this coming season.