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The current SEC Network is not going to be the SEC Network.
The current network is owned by ESPN3, but that will expire - the SEC will be renegotiating their deals in the near future. ESPN and the SEC will likely be partners in the new network with ESPN/CBS shelling out the cash and the SEC retaining a percentage of ownership.
The ACC on the other hand, has nothing to sell. ESPN already owns their media rights down to the last volleyball game - the ACC can't form a network or become a partner or do anything else as they have already given their leverage away until the mid-2020's.
There's a reason ESPN would be "lukewarm" on the idea - they would have to invest more money in the least valuable content and then try to force feed it to cable stations in markets where they would be competing against their own products. There's no upside there - it's just a vanity play for the ACC.
The idea is a pure dog.
I'm not sure CBS even gets involved. CBS has the Tier 1 content, but Tier 1 content typically does not end up on conference networks (probably for exposure reasons as much as anything). The Big 10 is really the model people are trying to follow (since the Pac-12 Network is not nearly as lucrative). The Big Ten lumps Tiers 2 and 3 rights together in one bundled package. And since the Big 10 schools all own this themselves, they don't have to share with anyone. The conference controls everything. That said, the actual Big 10 Network is split roughly evenly between the Big 10 and Fox. You might ask why Fox owns roughly half when they have no rights to any of the content? I don't know the inner workings of their deal, but likely because they put up substantial money and aided on the technical side of things. That gives them half the equity (for now).
The SEC is not nearly in the same position as the Big 10. ESPN already owns all the Tier 2 content. And while the schools do control their own Tier 3 rights, all of them have sold them off in individual deals. To get a network similar to the Big 10, someone needs to buy out all the existing Tier 3 deals. That costs money. So someone, either ESPN or the SEC, has to buy back all these rights. If ESPN does it, then ESPN would own all the SEC Tier 2 and 3 rights, just like they already do with the ACC. If the SEC does it, then they have something of value to contribute to the network, but they'd have to spend a lot of money to do so. Meaning they are already losing money before the network launches. There's an argument to be made that the sum is greater the individual parts. So the SEC (or ESPN) could make more money collectively from the SEC network than it would cost to buy out the individual deals. But still, the math does not really seem to work as there are costs to establish and run a network. How is either side going to make more money off the same rights they already have sold/own?
A big portion to that answer is likely the fact that ESPN has way more content than they can air. Sure, they can stick stuff on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, etc... But there are a finite amount of slots. Instead of sticking stuff on the ESPN3/the web ot simply not airing it at all, they can bundle it all together in a separate package, i.e. a new network. ESPN believes they can bundle together all this SEC material and make more money off carriage fees without diluting their existing networks. It would be a net gain. Whether they are right remains to be seen. Nothing has launched yet, so we don't know the ultimate result. The Longhorn Network has been a case study of how it has not worked. At least not yet. So there is risk. And whether the SEC has any equity in this Network is also uncertain (I would think they would eventually want to "buy in" if they did not, but as an example I don't believe Texas has any equity in the Longhorn Network).
Having established the SEC model, the question is if the ACC model would work. The basic facts and set-up would be the same. However, the ACC has at least one major disadvantage. Which is that the ACC content is seen as inferior to the SEC. So do people really want it? How much can they get in carriage fees? This ties into the next issue. The SEC is littered with flagship universities with passionate fan bases. People would likely want to subscribe. The ACC has some of that, but not to the same level. So it circles back to if enough people will want it. Can ESPN sell enough subscriptions at a high enough carriage rate to make it financially worthwhile? The best arguments that they can are as follows: (1) a large population footprint for the ACC; (2) ESPN costs are likely greatly reduced due to crossover/shared costs with the SEC Network; and (3) basketball is way more important in conference networks than many people give it credit for and the ACC is good at basketball (including having 4 of the most dedicated fan bases around - Syracuse, Louisville, Duke, and UNC). Again, whether this actually is a financially viable idea remains to be seen. But it's not as far-fetched as some want to believe.
Which brings me to my last thought. Since this is a UConn message board, how does this affect UConn? Unlike Nelson, I believe this could have a positive effect on Connecticut. People talk about markets in expansion, but markets really only matter to networks. Unless you're selling a network, no one cares that a school is located near a big city. When people talk about the kind of money the Big 12, ACC, Big East or Mountain West can get, they don't care about markets. What they really care about are ratings. How many people actually watch? Sure, the more people you have near a school does not hurt. But unless they actually tune in, it does not do much good. A network can effectively force all the people to "tune in" by charging them a monthly fee for carriage of the network. Whether people watch or not, a network makes money off a household that has cable. Without a network, the only way to make money is by showing people want to watch the content. Due to geography, UConn is significantly more valuable to a conference with a network than one without. If the ACC launches something, all of a sudden expansion seems more viable (but hardly definitive).
