The hype surrounding Patrick Mahomes provided a rare lift to ESPN’s Monday Night Football ratings.
Chiefs-Broncos scored a 7.9 rating and 13.21 million viewers on the latest edition of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, up 8% in ratings and 11% in viewership from last year (Washington-Kansas City: 7.3, 11.9M). Compared to Giants-Vikings in 2016, ratings fell a tick (from 8.0) and viewership inched up a fraction of a percent (from 13.17M).*
The Chiefs’ comeback win, which peaked at a 9.5 and 15.8 million from 11-11:15 PM ET, was the most-watched Monday Night Football game that did not involve the Cowboys since Week 16 of the 2015 season (Bengals-Broncos: 15.8M).
Monday’s game was the highest rated and most-watched telecast of the season on ESPN, and the network’s first game all season to post an increase.
MNF scored a 4.6 rating in adults 18-49, up 7% from last year (4.3) but down a tick from 2016 (4.7). Ratings also increased 13% in adults 25-54 (from 4.7 to 5.3) and 10% in adults 50+ (from 5.1 to 5.6). Ratings in adults 18-34 were flat at a 3.7, the lowest for ESPN in Week 4 of the season since 2005 (2.9).
ESPN’s telecast drew a 15.8 rating in Denver and a 15.5 in Kansas City. Local over-the-air simulcasts had a 20.7 on KTVD-NBC in Denver and a 30.3 on KMBC-ABC in Kansas City. Local figures are not included in ESPN’s national numbers.
New Orleans was the top neutral market at a 14.7, followed by Albuquerque-Santa Fe (14.0) and Washington D.C. (12.5).
* This year’s numbers include streaming viewership and are compared to TV-only numbers in 2016.
[Numbers from ESPN PR 10.2; Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 10.2]
