Does the ManningCast still matter?

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Now in its fifth season, the Monday Night Football ManningCast might not be the viral sensation it once was, but Peyton and Eli Manning are still attracting some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and even politics to talk football with them on ESPN2.

This NFL season alone, they brought on Bill Murray, Glen Powell, Charles Barkley, Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, and former president George W. Bush. Previous years have included appearances by The Rock, Will Ferrell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Adam Sandler, LeBron James, Tom Brady, and former president Barack Obama.

Next season, Peyton and Eli will even get to call their first Super Bowl from the comfort of their couches.

Both Manning brothers have become celebrities and media moguls beyond football, and the question has long been whether they want to commit to doing the ManningCast in perpetuity. That’s especially relevant given the drop in audience this past NFL season.

Including this past Monday’s NFL Playoff broadcast of the Texans-Steelers game, the ManningCast failed to crack one million viewers at any point this season, according to Nielsen’s Big Data measurements. Only two ManningCasts cracked 900K viewers, and three failed to reach 600K. The Wild Card game garnered 810K.

Compare that to the second season (2022-23), when every ManningCast broadcast on ESPN2 exceeded 1.1 million viewers.

The writing has been on the wall for a bit as the third season saw a couple of episodes dip into six-figure averages. By the fourth season, ESPN stopped including ManningCast numbers in its weekly MNF ratings updates for most weeks.

None of this should be too shocking. The uniqueness and absurdity that made the early ManningCast seasons so exciting have faded over time. There are also so many times Peyton and Eli can trot out the same schticks. Spontaneity has given way to slickly produced showmanship. And by the time you’re dabbling in the kind of corporate synergy that includes having the Disney CEO on as part of a PR offensive, you’re not the cool kids anymore.

It’s still a fun hang, but the novelty is gone.

Not to mention the ubiquity of alternative broadcasts these days. The ManningCast’s popularity led to a surge in altcasts, robbing them of their freshness as they became just another expected aspect of a network’s offerings.

There’s also a case to be made that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have turned the main MNF feed into must-see TV for football fans who were more easily swayed away from the previous booth. While things looked rough during the Disney-YouTube TV standoff, the season ended up the second-most-watched in ESPN/MNF history. Clearly, most of those people were watching the main booth.

So what, if anything, do the Mannings need to do to right the ship?

The most obvious answer is… nothing.

Pat McAfee, never one to shy away from offering his opinion about other ESPN shows and talent, said in 2024 that he felt the future of the ManningCast was “to become clips for a lot of people.” And that’s probably right. It’s already a program that few people watch live, but they still digest its content on social media. Given the ratings trajectory, that’s likely to continue.

ESPN would probably tell you that ratings aren’t the point of the broadcast. Its power is in its virality and its ability to continue attracting A-list guests to ESPN2 airwaves. It’s a way to keep Peyton and Eli in the ESPN family while their business and acting careers blossom. It’s the perfect complementary altcast for their Super Bowl programming next season.

After that, who knows? ESPN recently extended its contract with Omaha Productions through 2034, which implies they’re willing to see the ManningCast through as long as Peyton and Eli are, even if the returns keep diminishing.