ESPN to Televise Montana vs. UC Davis Football Game in 2024

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) – Part of the afterglow of going all the way to the FCS National Championship Game in January is the fact that ESPN announced this week that it will return to the iconic Washington Grizzly Stadium in November to televise the Montana Grizzlies vs. the U.C. Davis Aggies football game.

I spoke to Eric Taber, UM Athletic Director for Football on Friday about the honor from ESPN.

“This year the ‘Worldwide Leader in Sports’, as they say, is coming to Missoula,” began Taber. “They’re going to be broadcasting the game against U.C. Davis, nationally on one of their three linear TV platforms. So it will be on either ESPN, ESPN 2, or ESPNU. We’re not sure which one yet but the Griz versus Aggies will be on ESPN linear TV and we’re sure excited about that kind of exposure.”

First, it’s a night game and there will be a much larger national audience; and secondly, Taber said the late fall atmosphere will draw a lot of exposure to Washington Grizzly Stadium.

“Early November, that’s a beautiful time in Montana,” he said. “It can be a little hit or miss with the weather, but it should be just a great evening in the stadium. It could be anything from a snowstorm to beautiful fall leaves in the trees around town. It’s just it’s a great time to have ESPN come to town and we’ll hopefully it’s a good game for them as well.”

Taber said all the ESPN platforms are being used to broadcast at least two Big Sky Conference games.

“This is sort of all-encompassing,” he said. “It includes streaming rights, so all of our games are now streamed on ESPN+. Not just football, but soccer games and basketball games, too. “All those games are streamed on ESPN+, that’s part of the agreement with ESPN, and part of that deal was that they would show on linear networks two games from the Big Sky Conference per year regular season games, so they’ve chosen Montana and Montana State to feature this year.”

All Grizzly fans will treasure the memories of the amazing 2023 season.

“I’ve said it many times and I think the only word that really does last season justice is magical,” he said. “It really was just a special season. A special run in the playoffs and you know it had all the ingredients; overtime, double overtime against North Dakota State and it has just all the drama you could ever possibly want to draw up. What a great season to build on, and now we’re on to the next one.”

Montana comes into the summer ranked number 3 in the FCS, while the U.C. Aggies are ranked number 21.