Dave Neal Will Rule the Universe

If you've watched ESPNU, CSTV, or any of the Fox regional sports channels, you've no doubt seen the sustained barrage of commercials for the Big 10's new sports network. The channel is supposed to debut in August, but as MGoBlog details, the Big 10 is having problems figuring out just how people will see its programming because no cable carriers seem too interested in carrying the network on the channel lineup.

Undeterred by such problems, it seems the SEC has a similar idea after serious discussions took place at the SEC meetings last month in Destin. Sunday Morning Quarterback has some reservations about copying the Big 10 in this respect. Mike Slive has discussed that the SEC produces over 8,000 hours of sports programming. Not all of it can be consumed by the generous contract of CBS. Overall, CBS has done a great job. We get good games every week on an over the air channel. We have good, professional announcers like Verne Lundquist who at least sound like they appreciate the league. Hardcore SEC marks, though, want more. More games, more competition, more coverage that CBS (or ESPN or FOX Sports Net) would be foolish to broadcast nationally.

No doubt, people with sports watching problems, like myself, will eat up the SEC channel. As SMQ points out, if you add old games to the mix, then you have the potential for dominating the southern, 18-34 male for all the advertisers at Chevy, Copenhagen, Home Depot, and Dr. Pepper. Sure, there are flaws. Not many folks are going to be watching the Georgia-Auburn volleyball match, much less Vandy-Mississippi State football. The response in at least one aspect is that they aren't looking for a national audience, or even a regional audience. The target might be a subregional audience, say central Tennessee and northern Mississippi for the aforementioned Vandy-State game. I can certainly see the regional sports fan being more interested in SEC Olympic sports than the consistent jumble of regional and national sports programming of the FOX Sports outlets. Plus, the clear trend in sports programming is more fractionalization of media outlets, not less. Networks are become more and more specialized, including ESPN. The SEC is simply following the trend and trying to cut out the middle man by creating its own network.

What I really want out of the SEC channel is pure propaganda, an antidote to Mark May, Mike Lupica and all the other writers and commentators who the SEC fans cry about. On the SEC channel, we'll always be the best. If we lose, it will be because we "came out flat" or because Ron Zook somehow screwed it up, but we won't lose. It will be the Kool-Ade for Southern sports fans. After all, aren't we destined for the SEC channel? We already have websites devoted solely to the minutiae of your favorite team. You can now hear your team's radio call anywhere in the country. The question is not should we have the SEC channel. The question is when we will get the Alabama network or the LSU network? All your school's current and greatest athletic feats 24 hours a day. If we don't marginalize ESPN by consistently proving their analysts wrong, we can simply turn to our own homogenized media outlets, shutting our ears and diverting our eyes from anything else. Turn inward southerners!

One downside, Dave Neal as the Rich Eisen of the SEC Network.