Next year, SEC will leave CBS, its longtime TV partner. Here's what to expect in the future. (2024)

NOTE: This is part of a weeklong series on the future of the Southeastern Conference.

The Southeastern Conference is leaving CBS after this season, and it won’t be taking the intro song with it.

But the song is not the only thing lost in the conference's 10-year, $3 billion move to ABC and ESPN. It's mostly a loss of a historic relationship.

Disney, which owns ABC and ESPN plans to honor the SEC's traditional 2:30 p.m. slot for its biggest matchup of the week. But now, that 2:30 game will be on ABC, not CBS.

“I think there was a prestigious feel for the SEC and CBS in terms of how the presentation goes,” New York Post sports media writer Andrew Marchand said. “Because we look at that late window. In the NFL, for example, a lot of people talk about Monday Night Football or Sunday Night Football, but the most-watched time is the late 4 o'clock window either on CBS or Fox. If there's anything that was similar to that, it’s been CBS’ SEC game-of-the-week window.”

The SEC's relationship with CBS helped propel the conference to national prominence. It also signified a revolution in the way college football TV rights were negotiated in the 1990s.

How CBS got SEC football

The NCAA began controlling TV deals for college football in the 1950s after a study showed that broadcasts would decrease in-person attendance. Under the NCAA's jurisdiction, only one network could hold the television rights to all of its members at a time, and there was one nationally televised game per week, and all schools shared the revenue.

But in 1977, 63 schools from the ACC, Big Eight, SEC, Southwest Conference, Western Athletic conference, independents and service academies formed the College Football Association to negotiate their own TV deals. In addition, both the University of Georgia and University of Oklahoma sued the NCAA for schools and conferences to have the right to negotiate their own broadcast deals. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

“In the ’70s and early ’80s, you had a situation where the NCAA controlled TV,” said Mark Womack, SEC executive associate commissioner and CFO. “You had one national game a week, maybe a couple regional games. But there was just such a limit on the amount of television exposure until the Supreme Court decision.”

The CFA negotiated a package with ABC, and in 1991, Notre Dame was the first to leave the association for a $38 million deal with NBC. In 1996, according to the New York Times, CBS was looking to get into college football after the NFL left CBS for Fox. SEC football was an attractive option.

In 1996, CBS penned a five-year, $100 million deal with the SEC to broadcast its games, which marked the beginning of the end for the CFA. The Big East did the same later that year, signing a four-year, $19.2 million deal with CBS.

The idea was that both conferences would get more national exposure for their team members, and in 2001, CBS began covering the SEC exclusively, including its championship game.

That set the stage for that 2:30 p.m. game every Saturday, when the best SEC matchup was broadcast nationally, and not just regionally.

“That was counter to what everybody thought at the time — that people would only watch the game that was in the region,” said Andy Staples, a college football reporter who has covered these deals for Sports Illustrated, The Athletic and now On3. "That's what made it special."

CBS walked away from negotiations with the SEC in 2019, setting the stage for an ESPN/ABC takeover. But the new world of SEC football broadcasts won’t change too much for the average viewer. In fact, it might be easier to find everything fans want in one place.

“What we have with our new media agreements is actually the ability to populate a day on broadcast TV,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. “When I say we didn't have a lot of opportunities to access more broadcast TV opportunities, ABC was a part of that. We could now see SEC games on ABC at noon (ET), 3:30 (ET) and then in primetime in 130 million households.”

Staples said the change can also come with the added benefit of knowing the TV schedule sooner.

“They should be able to announce kickoff times at the beginning of the season,” Staples said. “There’s no excuse for 11-day windows when every game is on the same family of networks. Before, CBS had first choice, so they wanted to push it as close as possible to ensure they got the best matchup. But now they’re all going to be on something that Disney owns. (The) same company owns it all, so you should be able to come out in May and say, ‘Here’s the kickoff times.’ That’s what the NFL does.”

As for the famous song that served as the game’s intro? It will soon be attached to Big Ten games on CBS.

“People are going to miss the song — which is CBS’ song, not the SEC’s song, because if you watch a Mountain West game on CBS Sports Network, they also use that song," Staples said.

Wilson Alexander contributed to this report.