The 2023 FCS Championship is moving to Sunday afternoon on ABC

The FCS Championship is getting a higher profile network and a whole lot more competition this January.

Per a release from ESPN, the 2023 title game is moving to Sunday afternoon this January, and will start at 2 PM ET. The game will take place on January 8th, and will go head to head with a whole slate of NFL Week 18 matchups (which games are currently unknown, since the times for the final week of the season aren’t announced until the previous Sunday).

The move has pros and cons for the game. A big pro is the shift from cable to broadcast. Last year’s game aired on ESPN2, and drew 1.322 million viewers on Saturday with a noon ET start time. Three years ago, the game still started at noon ET on Saturday, but aired on ABC, and drew 2.686 million viewers.

Shifting the game to ABC is a huge pro for the FCS. But man, it’s going to be tough to see the game attracting many casual football fans with both CBS and Fox airing Week 18 NFL doubleheaders, and this game starting an hour into the early games and likely ending a little after the later games start. Overall, however, I think it’s a net positive.

[ESPN]