Facing the most-watched presidential debate, ESPN aired the least-watched edition of Monday Night Football.
The Week 3 Saints/Falcons Monday Night Football game had a 4.9 final rating and 8.0 million viewers on ESPN, down 41% in ratings and 40% in viewership from Chiefs/Packers last year (8.3, 13.5), down 42% and 39%, respectively, from Bears/Jets in 2014 (8.4, 13.3M), and the lowest rated and least-watched game in the history of MNF.
The previous lows were a 5.1 for Chargers/Raiders on Christmas Eve 2007 and 8.4 million for another Falcons/Saints matchup earlier that same year.
Beyond the record low for Monday Night Football, the Falcons’ win was also the lowest rated and least-watched regular season NFL game on ESPN since a special Saturday night Broncos/Bills game late in the 2005 season (3.9, 6.0M).
Figures do not include the streaming audience of 209,000 on WatchESPN. That was the smallest streaming audience of the young season on ESPN, despite ads encouraging viewers to stream the game while watching the first presidential debate. With the streaming audience included, Monday’s game had 8.3 million viewers — still the smallest audience in MNF history.
Ratings and viewership peaked at a 5.8 and 9.7 million from 8:45-9 PM ET, the final quarter-hour before the debate. Coverage of the debate pulled 84 million viewers across 13 networks — the largest audience for a presidential or vice presidential debate since they resumed in 1976, but still more than 25 million short of the most recent Super Bowl (no Super Bowl has had fewer than 85 million viewers since 2001).
The last time MNF aired opposite a presidential debate, four years ago, Lions/Bears had 10.7 million viewers compared to 59.2 million for that year’s second debate. The 2012 game also faced competition from Game 7 of the MLB National League Championship Series.
Among adults 18-49, MNF scored a 3.1 rating — down 39% from last year (5.1) and down 40% from 2014 (5.2). In ratings, viewership and adults 18-49, all four MNF telecasts this season have hit multi-year lows.
(Mon. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 9/27; debate viewership from AP 9/27)
