Tim Tucker of the AJC reports that Fox Sports South and ESPN have reached a deal whereby Fox Sports South will televise 91 sporting events per year including 7 SEC night football games and 20 men's basketball games.
Several weeks ago, Comcast / Charter Sports Southeast and ESPN reached a separate deal to televise 6 more games (no start time announced), 20 men's basketball games and other sports. Essentially, ESPN negotiated the rights to all SEC sporting events not televised by CBS for the next 15 years. ESPN can sell the games that they don't have inventory to televise.
Per this article in the Birmingham News and the Tucker article above, it sounds like there will be 40-46 SEC night games per year (depending on what time the CSS games air). That means 3-4 night games per week across the league. LSU fans everywhere are rejoicing while Mike Adams and Athens Law Enforcement Agencies weep openly.
What does this really mean for UGA? It's unclear because the pecking order for the Tier 2 and Tier 3 games isn't obvious. Also, it seems obvious that Adams and the cops will request some games not be played at night. That said...I'm now thinking that Georgia is looking at 3 home night games (SC, ASU and AU) and one home 3:30 pm (LSU) kickoff. We'll see.
The only way that would work for the cops, city and Adams would be if the Arizona State and/or Auburn games were twilight ESPN2 starts to keep the crowd a little more manageable / sober.
PWD
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