The Southeastern Conference appears to be recession-proof.
As the league's annual football preseason media days kicked off here at the Wynfrey Hotel Wednesday, a record 950 media members are on hand to interview the conference's 12 football coaches and two players from each school.
You would have thought with businesses tightening budgets in a shaky economy that the number of media members attending would be reduced. But it's not so, said Charles Bloom, the league's associate commissioner for media relations.
"We're slammed," Bloom said.
The reason for the packed house is simple. The SEC heads into its 77th season as arguably the nation's strongest football conference, and here's why:
It has won four BCS national championships in the last six years, including the last three years with Florida winning it all in 2006 and last year, and LSU in 2007.
It consistently has three or four teams in the top 10 nationally in recruiting rankings.
It drew 6.4 million fans last season, averaging an NCAA-record 76,832. It was the 28th straight season the league has led the nation in attendance. SEC stadiums were filled at 98.41 percent of capacity.
It has had eight teams win at least seven or more games in each of the last three seasons. During that time, the SEC has gone 19-7 (73.1 percent) in bowls, the most wins, easily, by any conference.
It has had a player win a major National Player of the Year award four times in the last six seasons, including Florida quarterback Tim Tebow's Heisman Trophy win in 2007.
And if that's not enough, the SEC is about to become the most televised college league from coast-to-coast, with lucrative 15-year contracts with ESPN ($2.25 billion) and CBS ($800 million) starting this football season.
It has been SEC commissioner Mike Slive's goal to have every SEC football game on TV every week, and he said these new contracts will accomplish the goal.
The deals make SEC football and basketball games not shown on ESPN networks available in more than 54 million homes on the SEC Network, the new name for the league's syndication deal with ESPN.
The two announced Tuesday that the SEC Network will be available in at least 47 percent of the country. It will be broadcast in all the SEC states along with some markets in other parts of the U.S. on local stations or regional sports cable channels.
(Ron Higgins writes for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.)
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