The Florida State-Notre Dame game is being played on Saturday afternoon rather than in prime time because that’s the way Notre Dame officials wanted it when they signed their five-year TV deal with NBC three years ago.
Tired of switching the starting times for home football games under previous TV contracts, Notre Dame officials said when they signed the $30 million contract that one of the reasons was to keep the kickoff times “uniform.”
“One of the things (Notre Dame) wanted was a consistent time in the afternoon,” said an NBC official. “To move the starting time now was not an option. This isn’t a situation like the World Series or New Year’s Day, where you can plan ahead of time.”
NBC has had exceptions to the 12:30 p.m. kickoffs. This season the starting time for the Southern Cal game was pushed back an hour because of the network’s commitment to televise the McDonald’s Open.
But with this being a sweeps period and the network breaking in shows to its Saturday night lineup, “we didn’t want to disrupt our prime-time lineup,” said the NBC spokesman. Also, thousands of fans would have been inconvenienced by a late change.
“Notre Dame contended they had people coming to the games from a three-state area,” said the NBC official, “and they would be inconvenienced by a late-afternoon or nighttime start.”