A horrible game featuring a horrible team drew superb ratings on ESPN Monday night.
Monday Night Football, featuring the winless Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers, somehow drew a 9.9 cable rating, making the sloppy, hard-to-watch game the third highest rated Monday nighter of the season.
The game, which Pittsburgh won 3-0 on a game-winning field goal, drew 13 million viewers, helping ESPN to win the night on cable, and to win the night across all networks in key demographics. The network “out-delivered all broadcast and cable networks in prime time among men age 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54), as well as among all persons 18-34 and 18-49.”
Needless to say, a game featuring an 0-11 team and no points until the final seconds of the game could easily have been expected to draw a record low rating. After all, ratings are down significantly for primetime NFL telecasts this season. The four lowest rated Monday Night Football games of all time have all occurred this season, including the two games preceding Dolphins/Steelers — 49ers/Seahawks and Giants/Jaguars, which drew national ratings of 5.9 and 6.3, respectively.
Perhaps the game was so bad it attracted national curiosity. Whatever the reason, ESPN is no doubt satisfied — even though the game, like so many others this season, was actually down 1% from last year.
