Sec football schedule

The Southeastern Conference (commonly abbreviated, SEC) is a college athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I in athletic competitions; for football, it is part of the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A). The conference is one of the most successful financially, consistently leading all conferences in revenue distribution to its members including a record $127.2 million for the 2007–2008 fiscal year.

The Southeastern Conference was also the first to hold a championship game (and award a subsequent title) for college football and was one of the founding members of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The current commissioner of the Southeastern Conference is Michael Slive.

History

The SEC was established in December 1932, when the 13 members of the Southern Conference located west and south of the Appalachian Mountains left to form their own conference. Ten of the thirteen charter members have remained in the conference since its inception: the University of Alabama, Auburn University, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University, University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"), Mississippi State University, University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University.

The other charter members were:

1991 expansion

In 1991, the SEC expanded from 10 to 12 members with the addition of:

In 1992, the SEC adopted the divisional setup that exists today. Also in 1992, the SEC was the first conference to receive permission from the NCAA to conduct an annual championship game in football, featuring the winners of the conference's Eastern and Western divisions. The 1992 and 1993 SEC Championships were held at Birmingham's Legion Field, and at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in all championship games thereafter.

Membership timeline

Television and radio contracts

The SEC televises football games across various networks during the fall. The primary networks for SEC coverage are CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, and Raycom (formerly Lincoln Financial and Jefferson Pilot). Games scheduled for airing are generally picked two weeks before they occur, with a few matches that are selected by CBS and ESPN prior to the season. CBS has the first pick for a game and selects the highest-profile game to broadcast to a national, over-the-air audience. The CBS game is usually broadcast at 3:30 ET. CBS also has the rights for the SEC Championship Game. The next selection goes to ESPN, which will usually broadcast an SEC game at 7:45 ET. Raycom offers regional coverage for an SEC game of the week at 12:30 ET, and each school plays at least one game at this time. For those outside of the SEC media market, this game is offered on the ESPN Game Plan package. After the three networks make their selections, ESPN has an option to select another game to broadcast on one of its networks. ESPN also has the option to select additional SEC games for ESPN2, or occasionally will broadcast some games on Thursday night.

ESPN reported paying $2.25 Billion for broadcast rights of SEC football games beginning in the 2009 season and running through the fiscal year 2025.

For games not selected by any broadcast provider, certain schools offer regional pay-per-view.

As of 2008, all SEC schools are affiliated with XM Radio, offering their radio broadcasts to an audience on XM. According to SiriusXM, the Southeastern Conference will not be included as part of the "Best of XM" package deal for Sirius customers.

2008 television contract

During the 2007–2008 fiscal year review meeting, there was discussion among SEC leadership about the possibility of starting a TV network dedicated to its conference, much in the same way the Mountain West Conference and Big Ten Conference have done with the mtn. and Big Ten Networks. A decision was made to postpone the decision until at least the following year.

In August 2008, the SEC announced an unprecedented 15-year television contract with CBS worth an estimated $55 million a year. This will continue the relationship the SEC already has with CBS, which puts the SEC in the unique position as the only conference to have its own exclusive national television network of the big three networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) to display the SEC's events. In the same month, the league also announced another landmark television contract with ESPN worth $2.25 billion or $150 million a year for the life of the contract, which is for 15 years. It is the longest and wealthiest contract among all television deals among the major conferences. With these contracts, the SEC has the richest television deals in the country and will make the SEC the most nationally televised and visible conference in the country with the coverage that is provided by these contracts.

SEC Commissioners

The office of Commissioner was created in 1940

Current members

The SEC currently has twelve member institutions in nine Southeastern states. The geographic domain of the conference stretches from Arkansas to South Carolina (west to east) and from Kentucky to Florida (north to south).

The conference is divided into two geographic divisions: the Eastern Division and the Western Division. The twelve current members of the Southeastern Conference are:

Sports

The Southeastern Conference sponsors championships in many different sports.

Under SEC conference rules reflecting the large number of (male) scholarship participants in football and attempting to address gender equity concerns (see also Title IX), each member institution is required to provide two more women's varsity sports than men's. The equivalent rule was recently adopted by the NCAA for all of Division I.

While South Carolina and Kentucky field men's soccer teams, the conference does not sponsor the sport; both schools in 2005 joined Conference USA for the sport.

Conference sports facilities

Football

Before expansion, each SEC school played 6 conference games. Five of these games were against permanent opponents, developing some traditional rivalries between schools, and the 6th game rotated around the other 4 members of the conference.

From 1992 through 2001, each team had two permanent inter-divisional opponents, allowing many traditional rivalries from the pre-expansion era (such as Florida vs. Auburn, Kentucky vs. LSU and Vanderbilt vs. Alabama) to continue. However, complaints from some league athletic directors about imbalance in the schedule (for instance, Auburn's two permanent opponents from the East were Florida and Georgia – two of the SEC's stronger football programs at the time – while Mississippi State played relatively weaker Kentucky and South Carolina every year) led to the SEC reducing the permanent opponents to only one per team.

Under the current format, each school pl

 

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