Here comes California, messing with college football again.
What began as SB 206 in the California assembly— and became known nationally as the Fair Pay To Play Act — has help fuel a revolution in college sports.
Now along comes AB 7, which threatens to play havoc with your Pac-12 kickoff times.
Think those 7:30 p.m. games along the west coast are a too late?
If Assembly Bill 7 becomes law, late-season games on Pac-12 campuses will start at 8:30 p.m.
Sponsored by Assemblymember Kansen Chu — and already approved by voters — AB 7 would place California on Daylight Saving Time all year: No more falling back and springing forward.
California would be permanently sprung forward, with all the lifestyle benefits that come with evening daylight and none of the disruptions to our circadian rhythms caused by changing the clock.
Apparently, if this goes into law in California, Oregon and Washington are prepared to follow suit in short order. And that would make things inconvenient for Mickey.
The entire West Coast would skip the process of falling back, leaving it two hours behind Eastern Time from early November through early March.
That would create a problem for Pac-12 kickoffs in the final month of the season.
ESPN and Fox use three-and-a-half-hour programming windows (approximately) on football Saturdays, starting with 12 p.m. Eastern and followed by 3:30 p.m., 7 or 8 p.m. and then 10:30 p.m.
The final window is reserved for the Pac-12 — the only Power Five conference capable of starting home games as late as 10:30 p.m. Eastern. (And those are sometimes pushed back to 10:40 or 10:45 p.m.)
If the West Coast doesn’t join the East Coast in falling back, the three-hour difference during Daylight Saving Time would become a two-hour difference from early November through early March.
In order for the Pac-12 games to fill the 10:30 p.m. Eastern window, they would have to start at 8:30 p.m. on the west coast.
Pacific Daylight Time in the winter months would be the same as Mountain Standard Time.
Late games would get later.
Eh, not to worry. I’m sure Larry Scott’s on the mother.