Members of the Ohio General Assembly are very concerned about college football.
A bill has been introduced in the legislature to prohibit Ohio State and other state schools from playing most of its home games before 3:30 p.m. Under the terms of the proposal by Rep. Tex Fischer (R), games including at least one state school and games including top 10 teams would be prohibited from starting earlier than the mid-afternoon. With one exception.
“Division (B) of this section does not apply if an earlier start time of a college football game between two teams is a college football tradition,” the bill states. “For this purpose, a ‘college football tradition’ is a start time of a game between the teams of two institutions whose football teams have competed against each other at least fifty times and the start time has been the same for at least ninety-five per cent of those games.”
Rep. @texfischer is out with a bill designed to curtail the Big Ten from scheduling Ohio State football games at noon.
The bill includes an exception that allows the Michigan game to kick off in its traditional noon slot.
Buckeyes have been in heavy noon rotation thanks to Fox. pic.twitter.com/LHKSxgEOUI
— The Rooster (@rooster_ohio) May 15, 2025
Of course, that caveat would exempt Ohio State’s annual rivalry game with Michigan from the ban. The Buckeyes and Wolverines have traditionally played at Noon ET on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
The bill comes amidst much consternation among Ohio State fans with the Big Ten’s media rights contract with Fox. The network gets the pick of the conference’s top game every weekend in football season and places its marquee game of the week at Noon ET as part of its “Big Noon Saturday” programming. With other top games around the country later in the afternoon and in the evening, Fox has been rewarded with strong ratings in the time slot.
That time slot has heavily featured Ohio State. Seven of the Buckeyes’ 12 regular-season games were at Noon ET in 2024 and six of those games were at home. Marquee contests vs. Penn State, Indiana and Michigan were all on Fox at Noon.
The early start times have drawn frustration from fans who attend the games for many reasons, including the inability to tailgate during the day. But Fox is a big reason why Ohio State and other Big Ten teams get so much money per year. It’s hard to see OSU and other Big Ten schools trading less TV money for fewer early kickoffs.
The bill to ban early kickoffs comes just months after a bill was introduced to ban flag planting at a football stadium. That bill was spawned by Michigan’s flag-planting display following the Wolverines’ 13-10 win over the Buckeyes in 2024. Ohio State went on to win the College Football Playoff after the loss to the Wolverines.
