ESPN and the NFL have significantly expanded the presence of Monday Night Football on Disney-owned broadcast network ABC—beginning with Monday’s Bills-Jets matchup—a move all but certain to further boost viewership for the showcase.
The networks said Friday they are scheduling six additional MNF games for the ABC simulcasts of ESPN coverage. The new games set for the dual-network presence are:
- Week 6 (Oct. 14): Bills at Jets
- Week 7 (Oct. 21): Ravens at Buccaneers
- Week 9 (Nov. 4): Buccaneers at Chiefs
- Week 11 (Nov. 18): Texans at Cowboys
- Week 12 (Nov. 25): Ravens at Chargers
- Week 16 (Dec. 23): Saints at Packers
Before this move, ESPN planned to show 11 NFL regular-season and playoff games this year on ABC, a marked reduction from last year’s schedule that featured 19 games either simulcast or shown exclusively on the broadcast network. With the revised schedule, that number reaches 17 and the overall 2024 MNF broadcast slate will now look much more like last year’s.
Last year’s heavy slate was partly owed to the writers’ and actors’ strikes that disrupted entertainment programming for the start of the 2023–2024 television season, and ESPN used the extra exposure to help fuel a 29% lift in MNF ratings. This season, ABC’s prime-time programming is led largely by reality and game shows, making the presence of the NFL—by far the most-watched content across all of U.S. television, regardless of genre—a rather welcome one there.
Even before the shift, though, MNF has been performing well on ESPN so far this season. The network had the benefit of showing the two-time defending champion Chiefs this past Monday, drawing an average audience of 15.91 million, marking its highest figure for a non-ABC simulcast game since 2019, while a season-opening game involving the Jets and 49ers drawing an average of 20.5 million was the second-best Week 1 figure in ESPN’s 19 years with MNF. The network, however, has not released a year-over-year viewership comparison as MNF doubleheaders held during Weeks 3 and 4 have skewed such analysis.
Overall, though, the NFL has posted a 1% overall viewership lift for the 2024 season so far.
ESPN’s total, 25-game NFL lineup for the 2024 season (including the playoffs) now includes 17 contests either simulcast or shown exclusively on ABC, seven tied specifically to ESPN, and one exclusive to ESPN+.
