became the first cable station to nationally broadcast college football live when it began airing games during the 1982 season. The games were aired under a special "supplemental" television contract with the NCAA. ESPN followed later the same year, starting with a simulcast of the Independence Bowl match-up between Kansas State and the University of Wisconsin on December 11, 1982, which was the first college football game shown live on ESPN. When TBS first broadcast college football in 1982, they aired a package of live Division I-AA games on Thursday night and Division I-A games on Saturday. games. WTBS was only able to show teams that had not been on national television in 1981. There were a maximum of four teams that had been on regional television on two occasions. Meanwhile, ABC and CBS had the right to take awaya game from WTBS as long as it did so no later than the Monday before the game. Bob Neal and Tim Foley were the booth commentators for WTBS during this period. Meanwhile, Craig Sager, Paul Hornung and Pepper Rodgers anchored the pregame show for WTBS. By 1984, WTBS started carrying :Category:Southeastern Conference football|SEC games. On June 8 of that year, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that allowed individual schools to control their own TV rights. That began the conference syndication packages in earnest and to the glut of games that continues to this day. TBS' coverage from this era was essentially the forerunner to the ESPN's Thursday/Saturday night packages.
2002–2006 coverage
TBS dropped college football after the 1992 season and left the field for several years. However, it again broadcast college football games from 2002-2006, showing Big 12 and Pac-10 matchups. These were broadcast on the network as part of a sublicensing agreement with Fox Sports Net, who is the national cable partner for both conferences. TBS' coverage was originally known as Big PlayStation Saturday, but this was dropped before the final season. The network aired two games a week for the first four seasons of the contract but dropped to one for some weeks during the final season.
Theme music
's 2003 cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was used as the theme song for TBS' Saturday Night College Football telecasts. In the show's open, the song is accompanied by a drumline and cymbalists, while clips of the two teams playing the night's featured game are interspersed throughout. TBS would also use the NFL on TNT theme c. 1997 for their Carquest/MicronPC.com Bowl and Senior Bowl coverage and their Saturday Night College Football coverage from 2002-2003.
Games on TBS (Division I-A games only)
Excludes the schedules from the 2002 and 2003 seasons because they could not be found.
