The SEC and Netflix have teamed up with a behind-the-scenes look at the 2024 football season, featuring 10 of the conference’s 16 schools, including Tennessee on its way to a College Football Playoff berth.
The series is produced by the same company that produced other Netflix sports projects, including “Full Swing,” which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the PGA Tour, and “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” Netflix said it will air next summer in eight 45-minute episodes.
The participating schools are Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, a source briefed on the show’s details said.
The production was reported by The Athletic in early June, with neither side confirming because a deal wasn’t done. Netflix went forward after securing agreements with more than half of the conference’s schools.
All 16 SEC schools were given the option to participate, said SEC spokesman Herb Vincent, who indicated the series could go beyond this year.
“When a majority of the member schools indicated an interest in participating, the SEC proceeded with Netflix on production of the series with the understanding that schools can opt in or out of participation in subsequent years,” Vincent said.
In a release, Netflix said the series “places viewers inside some of college football’s most storied programs in the SEC through unfiltered access to their coaches and players on and off the field: on the buses, in the locker rooms, at the barbershops, around the fire pits, running out of the tunnels, and more.”
There was initially some reluctance from SEC teams, concerned about giving an outside network too much access, sources around the conference have said. But there was also some worry that if the SEC balked, Netflix would go to the Big Ten, and ultimately the conference and majority of schools were attracted to the chance to advertise their programs in a different way.
“This behind-the-scenes docuseries will bring all the drama and pageantry of Southeastern Conference Football to a worldwide Netflix audience,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “Football in the SEC will be presented in a way never seen before through the elite storytelling skills of Box To Box, the content studio that has produced numerous award-winning Netflix docuseries. We are excited about this new delivery of content for SEC fans everywhere.”
(Photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
