SEC Network celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday, and though it has "not yet received ratings," it helped the SEC "set an NCAA revenue record over the last year," according to Matt Slovin of the Nashville TENNESSEAN. ESPN Senior VP/College Networks Production Stephanie Druley said, "Year One of anything is -- you sort of whack-a-mole. You take things on as they come. You sort of take it as you go. You keep your head above water, and you do the best you can. In our case, that’s been pretty good.” Slovin noted each SEC school "was paid" more than $31M by the conference, up more than $10M from the previous school year. Druley added that it is "unclear" when SEC Net will become Nielsen rated. Druley admitted that football "is the 'engine' behind the SEC Network, but the locomotive was churning full steam ahead in the spring as well." One of Druley’s "biggest revelations from the first year was that football’s popularity doesn’t drop off after the conclusion of the college season; SEC fans have an unquenchable thirst for football coverage." Meanwhile, Slovin noted the net "already has announced some of its changes for its second year." At SEC Media Days in July, the conference unveiled “SEC Inside,” a weekly sights-and-sounds program that "will focus on one team per week." The net also plans to "utilize non-traditional metrics in evaluating its second-year growth." Druley: “We’re going to measure how much better we are by how many stories we told. Did we entertain people? Did people learn something and did they remember something from what they watched?” (Nashville TENNESSEAN, 8/16)
