I was happy to hear that my cable provider had recently reached a deal with the SEC Network. I would have been very upset had I not been able to watch all of the SEC Network’s offerings this fall. This article from foxsports.com shows that the SEC Network will be the fifth most lucrative sports channel in the country. Providers in the SEC footprint will pay $1.40 per month per subscriber for the network. This is an astonishing amount of money considering the NFL Network “only” demands $1.22 a month per subscriber. However, what really caught my attention in this article is that cable providers  pay ESPN $6.04 per subscriber per month (not including what they pay for ESPN2, EPSNU, etc.). I was shocked at that figure. I found this article from 2012 showing the top 20 most expensive cable channels. Unsurprisingly ESPN was on the top of the list in 2012. This leads to the question of how much money will cable providers try to get out of their customers for the SEC Network? With all the cable alternatives available (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu) will there be a tipping point for cable providers? I have seen many of my friends “cut the cord” and have to believe the number will only increase. However, for those of us who live for watching sports on television, there seems to be no viable option to avoid paying whatever the cable providers demand.