If you missed the second half of this week’s ESPN Monday Night Football doubleheader, you weren’t alone.
The game, which featured the Arizona Cardinals hosting the Los Angeles Chargers exclusively on the streaming platform ESPN+, drew fewer than 2 million average viewers. That makes it the least-viewed NFL game since 2008, according to Sports Business Journal and Pro Football Talk.
PFT reported an audience of around 1.8 million average viewers, which SBJ indicated was “relatively accurate.” Either way, we’re talking MLB viewership here for the almighty NFL.
SBJ notes that there have been several NFL games in recent years that did not have officially reported audiences, including ESPN+’s Toy Story game last year and Yahoo’s exclusive Bills-Jaguars game in 2015.
ESPN is booked for one streaming-exclusive game on ESPN+ each season as part of its broadcast contract with the NFL. After years of using those rights to air an overseas game, the worldwide leader announced in May it would switch to a primetime window as part of one of its three MNF doubleheaders each season.
You have to imagine they wouldn’t have slotted the ESPN+ exclusive here if they knew it would get record-low numbers. As Awful Announcing noted last week, ESPN’s frustration could be aimed in a few places. One, at the NFL for keeping some of the Europe games to itself on NFL Network. Two, to schedulers for leaving them with a measly Chargers-Cardinals matchup in this slot (in what ended up being a close game, at least). Three, at Peacock and Netflix for coming over the top to buy better a la carte, streaming-exclusive games on the first Friday of the season and Christmas Day, respectively.
While ESPN framed the change as its own decision, it may be that someone else jumped them in line.
Still, as of May, ESPN+ had nearly 25 million subscribers. Even if we assume some of those may only use it for local NHL games or UFC pay-per-views, the MNF audience is less than 8 percent of its subscriber base. And unlike some exclusive events, NFL games are available over the air in local markets. So ESPN+ can’t even take solace in getting some new subs in L.A. and Phoenix.
Despite smartly negotiating some goodies for ESPN+ in its NFL deal three years ago, this MNF viewership dud seems to show that the Worldwide Leader is struggling to capitalize on that for its subscription service.
[Sports Business Journal, Pro Football Talk]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.