Montana Is Mad Online After ESPN Passes Over Brawl of the Wild

Montana was dealt with some bummer news this week - after a few weeks of campaigning to get ESPN to come to Missoula with its College GameDay program to cover Brawl of the Wild... ESPN decided that they were not doing that.

And man, we campaigned hard for it!

A Recap of #GrizonGameDay

Fans of both the Cats and the Griz were taking to social media with the hashtag #GrizonGameDay to encourage ESPN to bring the show to Missoula.

We had multiple celebrity endorsements from notable Montanans like J.K. Simmons, Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, and - just a few hours before the decision was announced - Batman himself, Michael Keaton!

We even transformed the M in Missoula to make it say GAMEDAY!

How Montana Reacted To The News

So instead of covering the 120th faceoff between the Griz and the Bobcats, College GameDay will instead be headed to Columbus, Ohio to see what's going on between Ohio State Football and Michigan State Football.

The funny thing is, when you scroll through the comments on their Facebook post or read through their replies on Twitter, almost all of them are from people telling ESPN they've made a huge mistake, and that Brawl of the Wild would have been the more compelling choice.

Here's just a sample of what people are saying online:

- "You are missing out... Missoula, Montana would have blown you away."

- "So glad to see the support for the Montana vs Montana St game on here. As you can see, people want something different, exciting, and inclusive for D1 football. Ohio state is so mundane and predictable... shame on yall."

- "You really missed an opportunity here Gameday. Another show at overrated OSU??? Not that I’ll be watching, but, yawn.....The Brawl of the Wild is something special in college football. You could have shown the country what that is, what it means and what it stands for beyond a football game. Please stop calling your show “College” Gameday. Big Money Gameday is much more accurate."

- "Wow, super disappointed to hear this. Ohio sucks, Missoula would have been far more interesting. How many times have you guys been to Columbus?"

- "What a lame decision! You have been to Columbus 20 times previously! Could have done something original and cool by coming to Missoula for The Brawl of the Wild"

- "Terrible decision. Shoulda gone to Montana. I hope you get a ton of backlash for this ESPN."

Well, in regards to that last one, it looks like they definitely are getting that backlash!

There are a lot more where those comments came from (many of which are decidedly NSFW), so who knows - maybe ESPN will learn from their mistake and come to Missoula in the future.

The Brawl of the Wild will take place this Saturday, November 20th. Tickets are very limited by now, but you can try to win a pair by messaging us with the phrase "GRIZ TIX" through our mobile app.

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