Why doesn't WRAL start SEC football games on time?

WRAL, via our partners at Raycom Sports and CBS is privileged to bring you both ACC and SEC football games on Saturday afternoons. But sometimes that leads to an overlap at 3:30 p.m.

In recent years the ACC, not WRAL or Raycom Sports, has chosen to delay to 12:25 p.m. the kickoff of the games we air. We continue to lobby for an earlier start but have yet to get them to budge.

The goal of our standard procedure is based on honoring our contractual commitments to both Raycom Sports and CBS, respecting the viewers who have chosen to spend three hours watching their favorite team in the first game, and trying to provide access for viewers eagerly waiting for the second game.

Our decision generally is to stay with the ACC game until its conclusion and switch as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we are able to utilize our secondary digital channel to assist. At 3:30 p.m., we begin CBS programming on WRAL2 (over-the-air at 5.2 or on Time Warner Cable Ch. 106) for those homes which receive it.