The SEC Keeps Getting Richer

Last Thursday, ESPN and the Southeastern Conference announced the league would be getting it's own cable network, the third collegiate sports conference to do so after the Big Ten and Pac-12. What You Pay For Sports, a sports blog dedicated to financial matters in sports, broke down how much money this new channel means:

• Assuming the SEC Network charges in their region as much as the Big Ten or Pac-12, $0.80 a month per subscriber, multiplying it by the number of Pay TV customers in those 11 states (over 19 million), the SEC Network would rake in over $185m per year.
• Assuming they also charge the same rate of $0.15 outside of the Southeast, if they make as many systems as ESPNU (54 million), they could stand to make another $98m a year. Add that to the previous $185M, that's a total of $280m. (And if your system picks the channel up, you'll be paying for those fees whether or not you give a damn about the Volunteers.)
• Add to that the $205m the league gets from current partners CBS and ESPN (which has supposedly changed but ESPN won't say how much), each of the 14 SEC schools would be receiving $25M a year alone from television, second behind the Pac-12's $30m/year.

How much will the "student athletes" get out of this? The same base scholarship they've always received. None were present at Thursday's announcement, but all 14 football coaches were, with their salaries totaling over $42M.
Read more at What You Pay For Sports, and a list of SEC coaches' salaries at Saturdays Down South.