Fans are funny... just ask a college football fan and he'll tell you that the SEC is going to make a ton of money on an SEC Network, but the ACC?  Give it up, boys.

Is that view realistic, though?

To answer that, we have to ask what is really shown on a conference network - is it football?  To a limited extent, sure.  There might be a couple of games every week, though most likely not the most desirable games to see (that's being kind), and even then only from September through November.

If not football, then what? Primarily, a conferene network is going to show tier 2 and tier 3 basketball games.  You see, basketball has some key advantages when you are looking to fill up a TV schedule:

• there are live games every day of the week, not just Saturday
• there are a lot more games, so more of them fall to the conference network
• basketball season is longer than football season

Clearly, the ACC has more and better quality basketball inventory than the SEC, and ACC fans are more interested in basketball than SEC fans, too.

Another sport which a conference network would likely show a lot of is baseball. I'd say the SEC and ACC are very close on that one.

What other sports would an ACC network probably show?  Lacrosse, women's basketball, soccer, etc., etc.

BOTTOM LINE:

The SEC dominates in the #1 sport - football - but that is not enough to fill up a 365-day TV schedule.  On the other hand, there is a wide variety of sports with fan followings in the ACC, which I think bodes well for a successful ACC Network.

For more, check out ACC Basketball Inventory on my ACCBasketballRx blog.