I'm not sure about this, but I think when the SEC renegotiated with ABC/ESPN, LSU had squeaked their wheel the loudest by that point and convinced ESPN to give them some grease. CBS, which considered the 2:30 slot "primetime," was never a welcome affair in Baton Rouge, and were unresponsive to LSU's requests for wiggle room in their selection.
In a conference where many schools have sought to preserve traditions, the night game at LSU is perhaps atop our list. (The away unis for certain conference contests is a recognizable one, but LSU let that lapse for a good while without a ton of protest until Gerry DiNardo "brought back the magic" in 1995, so it's clearly #2, at most.) LSU didn't invent the night game--that honor goes to some school in Wyoming in the late 1800's, where the game was eventually called because players kept hitting the large lighting pole in the middle of the field due to, ironically, pretty bad lighting. But LSU was the first to install permanent stadium lights and schedule games at night as a matter of course, back in the very early 1930's.
It was originally proposed to attempt to increase attendance by gathering in spectators who otherwise had to work their farms during the day, and to avoid conflicting with Tulane's game schedule, who was in the height of their prime. TPTB figured they could pick up additional fans from New Orleans if people could catch Tulane early in the day and make it over to Baton Rouge for the evening. Of course, the AD at the time (though that position was not called Athletic Director then) was also motivated, by his own admission, to avoid the beatdown heat and offer some relief to fans having to sit on the concrete seats, where he claimed you could fry an egg.
It did not immediately work, it took a little time for word to get out. But it did fairly quickly, and LSU night games in perpetuity were born.
A few other schools here and there followed suit over a decade later, with Texas Tech, Houston, and Miami installing stadium lights in the late 1940's, although day games remained in rotation. Many schools, way more than I would've guess before looking up details, did not start night games or even install lights and have the ability to play night games until well over half a century later, with some starting in the 1980's, and more still even later.
I guess growing up, sitting by the radio on Saturday nights, I thought that's what everybody did. TV contracts were not so all-encompassing back then, so radio is how I remember taking in the majority of LSU games, and I struggle to recall any in the daytime when we played at home. And I know for certain that my dad never took me to a game growing up that wasn't at night. I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, we just didn't have those. Preference or not, this is an LSU thing, in a way that it simply isn't for the rest of the schools.
Enter TV contracts. Change was inevitable, and I'm not here to say every LSU fans' druthers were completely reasonable.....we were never going to get all our home games at night. But it did put an ever-increasing dent in that tradition.
The culmination was 2011, in which LSU got ZERO conference home games at night for the season. CBS had the right to exercise one night game option per season over ABC, and spent it on Alabama vs. Florida. Why, I don't know, it should've already been obvious by that weekend that LSU @ Alabama was what they should've waited on. The background to this is LSU had been trying to convince CBS for a good while to work with them. CBS' contract stipulated they had to take certain games since each SEC team had to appear at least once during the season (I think), but beyond that CBS had leeway, some wiggle room, and LSU had reached out multiple times in an effort to reduce the number of times CBS was selecting LSU. LSU also sought the weight of the SEC, but the member schools and front office basically seemed to have the attitude "Meh, not really our thing. Stop complaining that you're good and CBS wants you on air all the time." For LSU, it wasn't about exposure or top billing, it was about continuing a tradition that was occurring less and less, to the indifference of the rest of the league which was quick to champion traditions of other SEC schools. In a league that sought to protect many traditions, it was hard to read that as anything other than "We care about tradition, just not yours, LSU."
So, seeing that LSU @ Alabama was going to be #1 vs. #2, CBS paid an extraordinary sum of money to ABC to buy a second night game of the season, then unheard of, though I'm not sure it's the last time CBS did that. This put the game at Alabama at night, which CBS normally would've taken during the 2:30 slot, in a year when CBS afforded LSU no home conference night games. LSU and its fans were, shall we say, not happy. CBS had proved that it could rearrange things if it wanted to, they just weren't interested in helping us out. CBS knew they pissed us off and they pledged to select LSU vs. Alabama in Baton Rouge for their night game the following year, which they did.
As I say, 2011 was the culmination, but before and after saw more night games taken from us than was logistically necessary, and I think probably a lot of fans welcomed the termination of the CBS contract. ABC--who had already been favorable to LSU in the CBS years by not selecting us for 11:00 or 2:30 games when CBS didn't take us--made night games with LSU a part of their new deal with the SEC. I don't mean to say there were no ESPN day games in those years--I'm sure there were--but they weren't common. I don't know what the actual current contract is, but I've heard reported that ABC has made an effort to take LSU at night when they can, continuing the previous relationship back when CBS had the Tier 1 rights.
So yes, LSU plays a ton of home games at night these days.....just as we always did prior to the CBS era. It is an LSU tradition, regardless of how important outsiders think that tradition is. We don't do it for some magical bullshit win percentage. Back when ftbobs website was still up and running, I was able to easily compare LSU's day and night game records against ranked teams, teams ranked in the top X, consider LSU's ranking at gametime.....all the bells and whistles the bobs' site had to offer. Not at all to my surprise, LSU's record vs. "comparable" teams at night was not meaningfully different than in the daytime. When LSU is really good, they win a lot, day or night. When LSU is not good, good teams come in Death Valley and skulldrag us, day or night.
But the fans enjoyment of the game, though? Hellz yeah........WAY better at night. That's when Tigers come out to play.
