A petition to ESPN management: Please release the broadcast rights to the FCS football games for the University of Montana and Montana State University playoff games. As Montanans, we follow these games very closely. UM vs. MSU is one of the nation's oldest rivalries (they just concluded their 111th annual meeting). Regardless of whether you are a Griz or Cat fan, your love for "Montana" comes first. And as Montanans, it is extremely disheartening to find out that our respective teams' playoff games will not be seen in Montana (unless on ESPN3 online, which, as a rural state, is mostly unavailable to our residents). We may not be a big market, but we are big football fans. And while ESPN will likely broadcast many meaningless bowl games that will bring in more money over the holidays, it has chosen to hold the rights to these meaningful playoff games. Games that determine who goes home and who goes on. Games that mean A LOT to the vast majority of Montana's almost 1 MILLION residents. We sign this petition with a simple request. PLEASE RELEASE THE BROADCAST RIGHTS TO THE EARLY ROUND FCS FOOTBALL GAMES FOR THE UM AND MSU FOOTBALL PROGRAMS (AND ANY OTHER UNIVERSITIES RECEIVING THE SAME TREATMENT). This is an easy decision that will garner you many more viewers down the road, as opposed to the large potential number of people who may no longer watch ESPN after knowing that they could've watched their programs compete for the FCS title, but were held captive from doing so by your network(s). There's no need to hold onto these rights if you aren't going to broadcast the games yourself. Do what's right by these universities and their fans and let them watch these games! Thank you for your time and consideration and please do what is right here. Sincerely, University of Montana fans Montana State University fans & Loyal ESPN viewers

Please note: The signatures here only reflect a few of the THOUSANDS already gathered on the Facebook petition "Petition to have ESPN Have Feeds of FCS Playoff Games"
https://www.facebook.com/events/121290624649284/
...the numbers are growing here and there (and everywhere) every minute you delay to change this policy...please take notice!

Sponsor

Links