For the third straight week, and the fourth straight game, ratings for ESPN Monday Night Football fell from last year’s numbers. Last night’s Tennessee Titans victory over the New Orleans Saints drew an 8.2 overnight, down 20% from a 10.3 for the Atlanta Falcons/Saints game on the comparable Monday last year.
It should be pointed out that the Monday night game last year was the Saints’ heavily hyped return to New Orleans.
Through four telecasts, ESPN is averaging an 8.0 metered market rating for Monday Night Football, down 13% from a 9.2 metered market average through four games last year. Why the drop in ratings? Anthony Crupi of Mediaweek speculates that the drop “may be a function of all three [Monday Night Football telecasts] having been intra-divisional games.”
In the same Mediaweek piece, Crupi quotes an executive from one of the NFL’s rightsholders as saying “The NFL looks at ESPN as … having less of a need to have the most attractive schedule. … The NFL also sees Sunday night on broadcast as their premiere promo window, not Monday on cable.”
While ESPN may have less of an attractive schedule than NBC, the network does have next week’s Patriots/Bengals game to look forward to — a match-up that could draw big numbers. In the meantime, there is certainly no shame in drawing an 8 overnight rating on cable; the first four Monday Night Football telecasts have been the four highest rated sporting events on cable this year.
