The biggest college football game of the season will be played on Saturday as the LSU Tigers, the top-ranked team in the country will travel to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide who is ranked No. 2. And as excited fans are about the game, they are not happy with the kickoff time being 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS. So because of that, one fan named Jared Waller started a petition to CBS to change the start time to 7:30 p.m. ET.
“It has been 8 years since the last ‘Game of the Century’ meeting has taken place between LSU and Alabama. The game is currently scheduled to be at 2:30PM CST. CBS is awarded one prime time slot in their contract with the SEC. However, this game is much bigger than the game they chose to use for that slot (UGA vs ND). This game deserves to be during prime time on game day Saturday,” Waller wrote.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Waller went on to list the reasons why the game should be moved to prime time including more viewership and a better atmosphere.
“This game deserves to be on prime time. The students know it, the fans know it, and CBS should realize the monetary potential,” Waller added. “Please help us really make this the Game of the Century!”
As of Tuesday morning, over 16,400 fans have signed the petition and the goal is to get to 25,00 signatures. The fans who signed are all in agreement that having it a night game would be better, especially with what’s on the line. But as Waller mentioned, CBS already used their night slot for the year with Georgia vs. Notre Dame. And according to AL.com, CBS has no plans to move the game to prime time.
“Should there be interest from CBS to negotiate a deal with ESPN, the network would have to contact the SEC office to initiate that discussion. To date, no such contact has been made,” Michael Casagrande of AL.com wrote last month.
In 2011, Alabama and LSU played in the “Game of the Century” and CBS was able to make a deal with ESPN to get the game played at night since the network already used the night slot for Alabama vs. Florida on Oct. 1. Like this year, LSU was ranked No.1 and Alabama was ranked No. 2. LSU won the game 9-6, but Alabama defeated LSU in the BCS National Championship game to claim their second national title in three seasons.
