‘SNL’ Season 52 Premiere Delayed In Many Areas Due To College Football

It wasn’t a great start to the season for Saturday Night Live in many parts of the country after linear viewers suffered a delay thanks to college football running late.

The Oregon-USC game finished just over 15 minutes late, meaning that many affiliates started after the Jalen Bruson-hosted opener with a 16 minute delay.

USC hosted its Big Ten rival at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Ducks won 41-27 but the delay was not helped by the fact that the latter’s star quarterback Dante Moore was carted off the field and taken to hospital by ambulance after a late hit.

Many stations including in L.A., Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, Dallas and Charlotte were on the delay, while stations in New York, Boston, Washington, DC and Miami, all of which are owned and operated stations, aired it live.

The episode was, however, live on Peacock.

The show kicked off with Ramy Youssef reprising his role as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, getting a visit from James Austin Johnson’s President Donald Trump.

Brunson then performed the monologue and was helped by a number of his teammates Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart.

New cast members Saidah Belo-Osagie & Grace Reiter were making their debut and already starred in an early sketch.

The cast now includes Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Ashley Padilla, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson and Jane Wickline with Belo-Osagie, Reiter, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska as featured players.