Why do college football games start at noon Eastern and NFL start at 1pm Eastern?

[jjgold]

There’s also a lot more games that are spread out college football all throughout the day and night have to have a lot of different timeslots

 

[Archie]

yeah just balty was affected

Prior to 1982, Sunday afternoon games hosted in the Central Time Zone instead primarily kicked off at 2:00 pm ET/1:00 pm local time. The home games of the then-Baltimore Colts also typically kicked off at 2:00 pm ET due to Maryland's blue laws at the time.[5] Since 1982, Central Time Zone games have primarily started at noon CT with the rest of the 1:00 p.m. ET early games. Colts home games also moved to 4:00 p.m. ET with the rest of the late afternoon games until the team's relocation to Indianapolis in 1984. Maryland's blue laws were later modified, allowing the Baltimore Ravens to play their home games at 1:00 p.m. ET since their 1996 inaugural season

 

[KVB]

Noon CFB starts means you can have another “window” to show more games. They can start at noon, 3, 6, and 9pm.

In NFL, fewer teams = having only 3 “windows” to show games 1, 4, and 7.

This is what I was going to mention.

There are more time slots in a NCAAF day than an NFL day.

 

[quantumleap]

Another reason could be to get an extra cycle of games in for CFB. With so many CFB teams you need more “windows” to broadcast as many games as possible on each network.

Noon CFB starts means you can have another “window” to show more games. They can start at noon, 3, 6, and 9pm.

In NFL, fewer teams = having only 3 “windows” to show games 1, 4, and 7.

That's the way I was originally leaning.