The lowest rated season of Monday Night Football ended with one of the series’ largest audiences in years.
Lions/Cowboys had a 10.1 final rating and 18.6 million viewers on the season finale of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, up 7% in ratings and 18% in viewership from Bengals/Broncos last year (9.4, 15.8M), up 4% and 16% respectively from Broncos/Bengals in 2014 (9.7, 16.0M), and the highest rated and most-watched MNF telecast since Washington/Dallas in Week 8 of 2014 (11.4, 18.8M).
The Cowboys’ win, which peaked at an 11.9 and 21.9 million from 9:45-10 PM ET, trails only the 2014 game as the most-watched MNF telecast in six years — since Saints/Falcons in Week 16 of the 2010 season (19.1M). It also ranks as the top Week 16 edition of MNF since that 2010 matchup and the top rated MNF game in adults 18-49 (5.8) since Vikings/49ers in Week 1 of last season (5.9).
For the season, Monday’s game easily topped the previous MNF highs of 8.0 and 13.2 million for Giants/Vikings in Week 4 and the previous cable-high of 14.8 million for Steelers/Ravens on NFL Network the day before.
Figures do not include the 260,000 who streamed coverage on ESPN digital platforms. With those numbers included, the game had nearly 19.0 million.
Monday’s game completed a solid finish to the season for ESPN, at least as compared with last year. Four of the final five Monday Night Football games posted a year-over-year increase in ratings and viewership, after each of the first 12 hit multi-year lows.
Yet the relative improvement could not overcome a miserable start. MNF averaged a 6.8 rating and 11.4 million viewers for the 2016 season, down 16% in ratings and 12% in viewership from last year (8.1, 12.9M) and down 18% and 17% respectively from 2014 (8.3, 13.3M). The 6.8 rating is the lowest average in the history of Monday Night Football, falling below the previous mark of 7.3 in 2007, and is the lowest for ESPN’s primetime NFL coverage since the network averaged a 5.8 for Sunday Night Football in 2005.
In addition to the record-low rating, the 2016 season was the second-least watched in MNF history and the second-least watched on ESPN since 2005 (8.7M).
(Week 16 numbers from ESPN)
