Tennessee Women’s College Basketball Coach Emeritus Pat Summitt was expected to hit 1,000 wins on February 2, 2009 against Oklahoma, but history had a different plan in mind and she reached it later that week against Georgia. Similarly, weather had a different plan for the SEC Network + 1,000 milestone which was set to be reached on Friday at 7:30 p.m. April showers affected the schedule and the benchmark instead fell on Saturday, April 25 at 1 p.m. ET to three baseball games and two softball games all airing simultaneously and registering live events No. 999, 1,000, 1,001, 1,002 and 1,003.
“This benchmark is a tribute to the commitment and dedication of each individual university,” said ESPN Senior Vice President Production, College Networks Stephanie Druley. “We set a modest goal at launch and the schools will exceeded that by more than double”
SEC Network + is comprised primarily of school-produced digital events. The network committed to airing 450 SEC Network television events and 550 SEC Network + events in year one. The network is now on track to do over 1,400 events, nearly doubling SEC Network + events only eight months in.
“I take a tremendous amount of pride in the role our schools have played in the success of the SEC Network,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive on Friday. “The investment we have made in first-class production facilities on each campus and the ambitious goals set by each school to deliver more action to their fans than ever before is why the network is a success by every standard.”
Every SEC school has at least one control room, a bureau cam and multiple on-campus athletic facilities fibered in a spoke & wheel system that connects each school to network headquarters.
ESPN producers and television veterans worked extensively with the schools to make any necessary equipment improvements on campus and provided continual guidance to improve the quality of production execution.
“Working with the university production units has been really rewarding for our team,” Druley said. “We are so proud of what they have accomplished and the high quality of events they are producing.”
Here’s to the next 1,000.
