Monday Night Football has notched another strong audience this season on the back of a close game and ABC simulcast.
According to ESPN PR via Nielsen’s fast nationals, Monday’s game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs averaged over 20 million viewers between ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.
That audience is up at least 37% year-over-year versus last season’s game between the Los Angeles Chargers and New York Jets.
The Week 9 audience marks a nice bounce back for Monday Night Football. Week 8’s Jets-Steelers matchup was significantly diminished by going head-to-head with Game 3 of the World Series and only drew 13.3 million viewers. Prior to that, Ravens-Buccaneers drew a 16 million viewer audience across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. That game aired alongside a Chargers-Cardinals exclusive on ESPN+ that drew a putrid audience.
Going further back, Week 6’s Bills-Jets averaged 17.3 million viewers, while Saints-Chiefs in Week 5 drew 15.9 million exclusively on ESPN.
Certainly, the nature of Monday’s game featuring one of the NFL’s marquee draws in the Chiefs being taken to the wire helped maintain the audience late into the night. The game served as a much needed comeback for MNF after several straight lackluster audiences.
Official viewership numbers from Nielsen should be available on Tuesday.
[ESPN PR]
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.