At about 4 p.m. this afternoon, The SEC Network will have been on the air for five years. Launched in the dawn of the playoff era, the SEC Network was the third (or fourth if we’re counting Longhorn) college conference network to launch. It eschewed the P12’s complete in-house ownership model and also skipped the B1G’s half and half ownership model with Fox to go with ESPN in a deal where the broadcaster wholly owns the network and just pays the conference for rights.
Five years later, it’s about to be the only model of conference network that will be duplicated, as the ACC Network will launch with a similar rights deal in a little over a week from now.