As part of the new SEC Network’s programming, it was announced that the network would feature a two-hour, College Gameday-style pregame show before its weekly football coverage called SEC Nation that would feature Joe Tessitore, Marcus Spears, Tim Tebow and Paul Finebaum.
First stop: Columbia, South Carolina.
ESPN released the first few dates of the new program today in Nashville, Tennessee, and Williams-Brice Stadium is atop the list for Thursday, August 28, before the South Carolina Gamecocks host the Texas A&M Aggies.
It makes sense that SEC Nation‘s first stop would be Columbia, given the fact that the Gamecocks/Aggies contest will be the first live game shown on the network. With a lot of eyeballs set to be tuned into the network for its first day, naturally it would be of benefit to have the network’s lead studio analysts in town to help get proceedings underway.
The next step: distribution. The SEC Network has cut deals with only Dish Network and AT&T Uverse as of now, which means that there might be more people watching the game in person than on TV if things don’t get ironed out before the network’s August 14 launch.