Report: SEC Network Picks Up Dish Network

According to a report by John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, the SEC Network has all but picked up a second carriage partner:

But ESPN could have leverage as it negotiates with cable operators, as it appears to be on the cusp of landing a deal with one of the industry’s biggest distributors. Sources said that the country’s third-largest distributor, Dish Network, has agreed to carry the channel from its August launch. The deal has not been completed and is part of a bigger overall deal that it is negotiating with ESPN.

The conference and ESPN announced in their introductory press conference that AT&T U-verse would be carrying the network.

The report also says that ESPN and the SEC are seeking an amazing $1.30 per subscriber within the SEC footprint and a quarter per subscriber outside of it. Those rates would make it the most expensive conference network, surely a sticking point with other TV providers. Given those rates, if Dish Network's 14,056,000 subscribers are distributed throughout the country in the same way the US population was in the 2010 census, this deal with Dish would be worth about $7.85 million per month.

Last week, Ourand made a list of five things he took away about the SEC Network from the SBJ's college athletics conference. If this topic interests you at all, it's well worth your time to check that out.