SEC Network

#1
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VOLINVONORE

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#1
I still do not understand why the SEC Network will not provide TV coverage of more SEC sports. Tennessee is ranked #1 in the Nation in Tennis and are, at this moment, playing #10 Wake Forrest. It appears that the SEC is even unaware that one of its Athletic teams is currently ranked #1 in any sport other football. Even some Men's and women's basketball basketball games can only be seen by streaming. Many people who live in rural areas can not stream because they do not have high speed internet. Why can't something be done to improve coverage of more SEC events on the SEC channels. When the SEC Network was introduced, we were promised coverage of many of the "minor" sports on at least one of the original 4 channels. I now see that they list only 2 channels and the second channel is seldom used and is more or less useless. I have noticed that the Big Ten Channels have more channels listed, however, 3 of the channels are carrying the same event. We don't want that either. I enjoyment of the minor sports including Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, Soccer, Volleyball, Baseball, etc. Let's try and get some support to require these sports become available on ANY network, preferable on the SEC Network.
 
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#3
#3
I don't know, man. You're asking good questions. I sure don't know the answers.

But maybe part of it is like calcium buildup in arteries, or tartar buildup on teeth, or gunk buildup on a car engine.

When MTV was brand new, you know what you saw if you turned to the channel? A music video. A few hours later? Yep, a music video.

But give it time to evolve, and a "calcium buildup" of talk shows and ranking shows and spin-offs fills up all the time; you rarely see a music video any more, except contextualized in some program that spends 28 minutes discussing the video but only 2 minutes showing bits of it.

I think maybe that kind of thing happened with SEC-Network, too. Just much faster.

It took a decade or more for MTV to fill up with junk, blocking the original content (music). It only took the SEC Network, what, a few years maybe, to fill up with crap like Finebaum. Leaving no room for the original content (SEC sports events).

It's a pity.

Worst thing is, there's nothing we can do about it. Only competition would encourage quality...but there's no one out there even trying to compete with ESPN for our attention when it comes to sporting events.

Pity.
 
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#9
#9
I can see ESPN not wanting to spring for crews and equipment for events they're going to lose money on. But UT has video sports production classes, video production classes, studio production, sports writing... It'd be cool to see something like a web-only SEC-U channel be part of the SEC Network, and let universities put their own broadcasts on it. It'd be an amazing learning experience for students and it'd put more UT sports out there for us to watch. And surely if the economics are right for there to be HD webcasts of high school football, we can put more UT sports online. And ESPN could selectively air things on an actual cable channel, from universities that put together a polished enough product that they wouldn't mind associating themselves with it. Edit: although I don't even begin to know how you'd learn how to put TV timeouts in a tennis match ha.
 
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#11
#11
ArmchairQB said:
I can see ESPN not wanting to spring for crews and equipment for events they're going to lose money on. But UT has video sports production classes, video production classes, studio production, sports writing... It'd be cool to see something like a web-only SEC-U channel be part of the SEC Network, and let universities put their own broadcasts on it. It'd be an amazing learning experience for students and it'd put more UT sports out there for us to watch. And surely if the economics are right for there to be HD webcasts of high school football, we can put more UT sports online. And ESPN could selectively air things on an actual cable channel, from universities that put together a polished enough product that they wouldn't mind associating themselves with it. Edit: although I don't even begin to know how you'd learn how to put TV timeouts in a tennis match ha.
Click to expand...
Just a web only UT channel and channel for each schoolwould be awesome and worth some of my time, but I know the SEC/ ESPN deal forbids it, even though ESPN wants no part of the sports and broadcasts we are talking about.
 
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#13
#13
VFL-82-JP said:
I don't know, man. You're asking good questions. I sure don't know the answers.

But maybe part of it is like calcium buildup in arteries, or tartar buildup on teeth, or gunk buildup on a car engine.

When MTV was brand new, you know what you saw if you turned to the channel? A music video. A few hours later? Yep, a music video.

But give it time to evolve, and a "calcium buildup" of talk shows and ranking shows and spin-offs fills up all the time; you rarely see a music video any more, except contextualized in some program that spends 28 minutes discussing the video but only 2 minutes showing bits of it.

I think maybe that kind of thing happened with SEC-Network, too. Just much faster.

It took a decade or more for MTV to fill up with junk, blocking the original content (music). It only took the SEC Network, what, a few years maybe, to fill up with crap like Finebaum. Leaving no room for the original content (SEC sports events).

It's a pity.

Worst thing is, there's nothing we can do about it. Only competition would encourage quality...but there's no one out there even trying to compete with ESPN for our attention when it comes to sporting events.

Pity.
Click to expand...
I think it is economics. It is much less expensive to have some blowhole screaming about something inane in a studio than to pay to send a TV crew and announcers to an event.

Likewise, music royalties are expensive, but you can film a house full of idiots for next to nothing.

My question in both cases...why do people watch it?!?
 
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#14
#14
VAVol85 said:
I think it is economics. It is much less expensive to have some blowhole screaming about something inane in a studio than to pay to send a TV crew and announcers to an event.

Likewise, music royalties are expensive, but you can film a house full of idiots for next to nothing.

My question in both cases...why do people watch it?!?
Click to expand...
I think I know the answer to that last part: the teaser.

I listen to sports radio when I'm driving. And only occasionally do the fellas on there talk about sports. They gossip about athletes' and coaches' lives, they talk about each other, and they tell the listening audience what TV shows they're enjoying and why, but very little of the chatter is actually about sport proper. You know, describing a game that was played, breaking down how it was played, why one team won, that sort of thing.

Maybe 5 or 10 minutes of actual sports each hour ... on a sports radio channel devoted to, you know, sports.

BUT

But every time they're talking about what's gonna come up in the NEXT hour, they'll highlight that coach so-and-so is going to be on, or that they'll get to the Tennessee-Bama game, or something like that. So that's the teaser.

And if you're a fool trapped behind the wheel, like me, you'll listen to another 50 or 55 minutes of trite banter for that little bit of sports.

Haha, I bounce back and forth between 102.5 and 104.5 (I'm in Nashville area) trying to find the nuggets of actual sports discussion.

What else can you do? :)
 
#15
#15
Production costs more than likely outweigh estimated ad revenue. ESPN produces the SEC network and we've all heard about the great lengths they have gone to in recent years to slash expenses. If there were revenue to be generated, it would be on. All the network suits care about is the money.
 
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#16
#16
ArmchairQB said:
I can see ESPN not wanting to spring for crews and equipment for events they're going to lose money on. But UT has video sports production classes, video production classes, studio production, sports writing... It'd be cool to see something like a web-only SEC-U channel be part of the SEC Network, and let universities put their own broadcasts on it. It'd be an amazing learning experience for students and it'd put more UT sports out there for us to watch. And surely if the economics are right for there to be HD webcasts of high school football, we can put more UT sports online. And ESPN could selectively air things on an actual cable channel, from universities that put together a polished enough product that they wouldn't mind associating themselves with it. Edit: although I don't even begin to know how you'd learn how to put TV timeouts in a tennis match ha.
Click to expand...

You just described exactly what SEC+ is, which has existed and produced these events since 2014.
 
#18
#18
VAVol85 said:
I think it is economics. It is much less expensive to have some blowhole screaming about something inane in a studio than to pay to send a TV crew and announcers to an event.
Click to expand...

Agreed, 100%. Watching Tennessee tennis last year was like pulling teeth, requiring streaming via several dedicated tennis apps (without Apple TV apps, if I recall correctly) that performed okay but boasted terrible whip-around coverage, but it kind of makes sense overall since I don't believe that ESPN has the rights to air tennis with notable championship exceptions and procuring said rights might cost more than alternative programing.

But... why not baseball/softball? I know that doesn't solve things in late January, and recognize that ESPN has stepped up its game considerably in terms of airtime, but this is programming that you already own and are streaming on your platform anyway so the notion of having "dead air" (either via replay or fluff news, for which you're paying anchors/production/et cetera) on the SEC Network (let alone ESPN or ESPN/ESPNU!) seems crazy to me. The Pac-12 Network is airing 100 baseball games this spring compared to 77 SEC baseball games on ESPN networks (59 of which on SECN) last spring; it's a popular sport on the west coast, no doubt, but the fervor exists down south too and the potential for increased interest exists more this season than ever with the possible MLB lockout.

If you want to grow interest in college sports and increase your network's ROI given that this is already part of your inventory, it certainly seems like you have a golden opportunity to do so that ends up being foiled by 4-month-old games and a live video stream of a popular radio show.
 
#19
#19
VOLINVONORE said:
I still do not understand why the SEC Network will not provide TV coverage of more SEC sports. Tennessee is ranked #1 in the Nation in Tennis and are, at this moment, playing #10 Wake Forrest. It appears that the SEC is even unaware that one of its Athletic teams is currently ranked #1 in any sport other football. Even some Men's and women's basketball basketball games can only be seen by streaming. Many people who live in rural areas can not stream because they do not have high speed internet. Why can't something be done to improve coverage of more SEC events on the SEC channels. When the SEC Network was introduced, we were promised coverage of many of the "minor" sports on at least one of the original 4 channels. I now see that they list only 2 channels and the second channel is seldom used and is more or less useless. I have noticed that the Big Ten Channels have more channels listed, however, 3 of the channels are carrying the same event. We don't want that either. I enjoyment of the minor sports including Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, Soccer, Volleyball, Baseball, etc. Let's try and get some support to require these sports become available on ANY network, preferable on the SEC Network.
Click to expand...


The SEC Alternate channel is mostly used for football.
 
#21
#21
VFL-82-JP said:
I think I know the answer to that last part: the teaser.

I listen to sports radio when I'm driving. And only occasionally do the fellas on there talk about sports. They gossip about athletes' and coaches' lives, they talk about each other, and they tell the listening audience what TV shows they're enjoying and why, but very little of the chatter is actually about sport proper. You know, describing a game that was played, breaking down how it was played, why one team won, that sort of thing.

Maybe 5 or 10 minutes of actual sports each hour ... on a sports radio channel devoted to, you know, sports.

BUT

But every time they're talking about what's gonna come up in the NEXT hour, they'll highlight that coach so-and-so is going to be on, or that they'll get to the Tennessee-Bama game, or something like that. So that's the teaser.

And if you're a fool trapped behind the wheel, like me, you'll listen to another 50 or 55 minutes of trite banter for that little bit of sports.

Haha, I bounce back and forth between 102.5 and 104.5 (I'm in Nashville area) trying to find the nuggets of actual sports discussion.

What else can you do? :)
Click to expand...
I used to listen to 104.5 on my way to work every morning. I started keeping track, and during my 25 minute commute, I would hear maybe 3 minutes of actual talk, the rest of the time was either the hosts reading ads or ads themselves.
 
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#22
#22
DeerPark12 said:
You just described exactly what SEC+ is, which has existed and produced these events since 2014.
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The medium, yeah. ESPN has offered stuff in an online-only format for a while. But they’ve also shown zero interest in promoting some of the more niche sports. I don’t know that I’ll ever see a truck out at Melton Lake doing a rowing regatta, you know? And that’d be just a neat thing to let universities run wild with… give them access to the distribution medium, just the streaming service itself. Allow universities to put together their own coverage and broadcasts, on their own nickel, for their own students in their own communications programs, for the sports ESPN itself just isn’t going to cover. It’s free content for ESPN, trains kids who want to get into sports broadcasting and gives us more stuff to watch. So of course it’ll never happen 🤣
 
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#23
#23
dobre_shunka said:
Pretty sure tennis and other non-revenue sports can be streamed live through the UT Sports app
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You're correct. On demand too. Can still watch tonight. Not sure how long it will be available.

Also, the second SEC network is not offered in my market by Xfinity (Comcast) anyway, only the primary SEC channel. I have to watch 2nd channel events thru ESPN app.
 
#25
#25
VOLINVONORE said:
I still do not understand why the SEC Network will not provide TV coverage of more SEC sports. Tennessee is ranked #1 in the Nation in Tennis and are, at this moment, playing #10 Wake Forrest. It appears that the SEC is even unaware that one of its Athletic teams is currently ranked #1 in any sport other football. Even some Men's and women's basketball basketball games can only be seen by streaming. Many people who live in rural areas can not stream because they do not have high speed internet. Why can't something be done to improve coverage of more SEC events on the SEC channels. When the SEC Network was introduced, we were promised coverage of many of the "minor" sports on at least one of the original 4 channels. I now see that they list only 2 channels and the second channel is seldom used and is more or less useless. I have noticed that the Big Ten Channels have more channels listed, however, 3 of the channels are carrying the same event. We don't want that either. I enjoyment of the minor sports including Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, Soccer, Volleyball, Baseball, etc. Let's try and get some support to require these sports become available on ANY network, preferable on the SEC Network.
Click to expand...
ESPN/SEC would rather you sit at home and watch the know-it-alls tell you their opinion of Sports...So tired of this.
 
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