FARGO -- After two years of going to head to head with the NFL, the FCS Championship Game will be all by its lonesome this year.
In April, the NCAA announced that the 2025 FCS Championship Game was moving to a Monday night, Jan. 6. It will be the only football game on the calendar for that day; with the NFL regular season wrapping up the day prior; and the College Football Playoff semifinals later in the week.
"The biggest thing we were looking for was a permanent TV home for the FCS Championship. We started going up against the NFL, and so the biggest goal of moving to Monday night was being the only game on TV that night." said Matt Larsen, the FCS Playoff Committee chairman.
This year's game will feature North Dakota State and Montana State, the top two seeds facing each other. The game will kickoff at 6 p.m. central time on ESPN.
"We're excited about the opportunity to make the move to Monday night. What does that day look like around the stadium?" said Ty Halpin, the NCAA Director of Championships and Alliances.
The last two championship games were played on Sundays; going up against the final Sunday of the NFL regular season. Each of those games had just over a million viewers, with the North Dakota State - South Dakota State game getting 1.07 million viewers and the SDSU - Montana game last year picking up 1.04 million viewers.
Larsen added; "We'll be the only football game on TV that night. We haven't talked about ratings and greater people tuning in, just the visibility and fewer games to go head to head against will be better for the FCS Championship."
Prior to 2022, the title game was played on Saturdays, typically in the 11 a.m. window, leading into NFL games that were played later that day. The FCS Playoff committee saw an opening with the CFP expanding its playoff schedule to get away from the NFL and move into the Monday night timeslot.
When asked if a Monday night may not be as conducive for fans to come to the game as opposed to a weekend, Larsen offered this response.
"A national championship is pretty special and when a team makes it, we believe fans will make every effort to get there, no matter what the day is. We're looking at trying to get greater visibility and believe fans will make that trip to support their team."
The FCS semifinals were moved to network television for the first time this year, each game being played on ABC. No ratings were known as of Wednesday night.
CFP not immune to NFL TV power
This past weekend, the CFP ran full tilt into the power of the NFL. The initial CFP quarterfinals were held on Friday and Saturday, with each game being played on campus sites.
The NFL didn't back off and scheduled two games on Saturday, each on network TV and involving signature franchises like the Chiefs, Steelers and Ravens. Each NFL game had over 15 million viewers, with the top CFP game registering 14 million viewers between Tennessee and Ohio State on ABC.
There was no NFL game being played at that time.
Back in January, Larsen said he would like the FCS Championship to carve out a spot on the first weekend of January with the CFP expansion moving the playoffs deeper into January.