ESPN's 'Monday Night Football' Ratings Crash to Historic Low
ESPN’s continued efforts to make Roone Arledge — the TV executive who turned the idea of pro football on a Monday night into ratings gold at ABC — roll over in his grave continued in a big way Monday night.
“Monday Night Football,” Arledge’s crown jewel of programming, continues to sink into a morass that seeks to answer the question “if an NFL game is put on national television in prime time and nobody watches it, did it make a sound?”
Well, considering the the Jets-Lions and Raiders-Rams twin bill featured games that ended with a combined score of 81-30 and both games were effectively over by the third quarter, of course they made a sound.
That sound was “fffffffffffft,” as in the sound an air mattress makes after you stab it with an ice pick while you’re laying on it.
Jets-Lions was a fun watch if you enjoy seeing football teams embarrass themselves. It began with New York’s Sam Darnold’s first career pass going being returned for a pick-six, and then later with every Detroit offensive play turning out like an old game of Tecmo Bowl when your little brother is looking at your controller while you pick plays. The 48-17 blowout pulled a 7.5 overnight rating according to Sports Media Watch.
That’s down 4 percent from last year, when Saints-Vikings pulled a 7.8, and 18 percent lower than 2016, when Steelers-Redskins pulled a 9.1.
The Rams-Raiders game, which started at 10:20 p.m. Eastern and ran so late that even kids on the West Coast had to go to bed before the end because they had school in the morning, pulled a 7.0 rating. That’s equal to last year’s 7.0 for Chargers-Broncos and a click below the 7.1 the Rams-49ers blowout pulled in 2016.
What’s the silver lining? This is the first overnight-ratings story for the NFL so far this season that didn’t involve the phrase “catastrophic drop” and/or comparison to Wile E. Coyote after he looks down.
Still, it’s possible that pro football might have only so far it can fall before it ventures into “people are watching it because it’s on” territory.
The 7.0 rating was tied with last year for the second-worst Week 1 TV rating in NFL history, just ahead of the 6.8 the Cardinals-49ers pulled in 2007.
Jets-Lions peaked at a 9.0 in the 9:30-9:45 p.m. (Eastern) time segment, right around the time Twitter started buzzing with the “you have to see this, it’s a train wreck, it’s great” summon-the-gawkers crowd.
Meanwhile, Raiders-Rams peaked at 8.7 in the 10:45-11:00 p.m. slot shortly after kickoff, when the game was competitive in the first half.
Ratings for “Monday Night Football” have been skidding along the ground ever since it moved from ABC to ESPN in 2005.
That decision was made at the same time the league decided, persuaded by $600 million worth of NBC’s money, to turn “Sunday Night Football” into the week’s showcase game.
Sunday night makes sense for a marquee game for two reasons. First, it’s the most-watched night of the week in terms of TV viewership. Second, it’s easier to reschedule the best matchups for prime time later in the season. Moving a game from a 1 p.m. kickoff to an 8:25 p.m. start may disrupt some fans’ plans, but in general, it’s still Sunday.
Trying to move a Sunday game to Monday, and the Monday game back to Sunday, creates conflicts not just with fans but with concerts, outdoor expositions, and everything else that a stadium can be used for. Those sorts of events are rarely held on the same day, even seven hours apart.
So ESPN has been left with the scraps, games like Lions-Jets and Raiders-Rams that are of interest to few people beyond those who have guys on their fantasy teams that are playing.
Combine less-than-desirable matchups with blowouts that were interesting for, at best, two and a half quarters, and people don’t wait very long before changing the channel.
The NFL is going to have to fix this, because at the rate it’s going, “Monday Night Football” could be headed for the great TV schedule in the sky.
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