Serious question: Who determines kickoff times? Is it the conference or the various TV networks?
My original question from a few pages back.
I see a lot of twits acting like this is about the players but clearly the university is tired of creating a public health/safety crisis of their own creation for the fans. Most importantly as Cecil Hurt was likely informed to spread: LSU has 13 scheduled September night games in a time period where Alabama has played 14 September day games. And you are playing yourself if you think there is a discernible difference in Alabama and LSU September schedules from 2014 to present.
Alabama gets stuck in these time slots more often mainly due to the SEC Network which means effectively the conference itself is electing to make them play a morning game when they already have their rights and could put them at night.
rgw answered part of the question with his first paragraph....the networks control the kickoff times for the games they choose, not the SEC.
So a follow-on: Does the SEC Conference control, or have influence over, the SEC Neteork's scheduling?
I know that ESPN is the financial backing behind the SEC Network. So it would not be illogical to think that, name notwithstanding, money wins and the Conference doesn't in fact have much say over the schedule of he network that bears its name.
It's also possible that the Conference negotiated some measure of influence in the original contract. I don't know if they did that or not.
I do know that this isn't just an intra-Conference issue, solvable by Conference management alone. It involves multiple other parties, all of whom have a financial interest in keeping the status quo.
Bottom line is that this isn't going to change unless and until the networks have a contractual obligation (currently none, except for
maybe the SECN) or a financial interest (currently, nobody) in changing it.