The growing importance of NFL football for linear TV networks has notched another important data point with ESPN announcing that Monday Night Football delivered its most-watched season in 23 years. 

During the 2023-24 season, ESPN reported that MNF reached 124 million fans, lifted its audience in every key demo by double-digits, and aired four games whose viewership surpassed all previous MNF games dating back to the 2000 NFL season (395+ games).

The 2023 Monday Night Football season was the show’s most watched since the 2000 NFL season, with viewership surpassing each of the previous 18 seasons in the ESPN era (2006 – present) and the five seasons leading into that era when MNF aired singularly on ABC.

Overall, ESPN averaged 17,363,000 viewers a game (22 games including Doubleheader Saturday in Week 18), up 29% from the 2022 MNF season. The 17.4 million viewers a game was also up 18% from the 2010 MNF season, ESPN’s previous most-watched season in the Monday Night Football era.

The 124 million fans that watched Monday Night Football throughout the season represents growth of 17% from the 2022 season, ESPN said. 

ESPN punctuated its regular season with Doubleheader Saturday (January 6) with the Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts (8:15 p.m.)  averaging 19.7 million viewers and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens (4:30 p.m.) with 19.8 million viewers.  This year’s games rank as the second and third most-watched Doubleheader Saturday games of the six ESPN has aired (2021-23 seasons), with the AFC North game was up 11% year-over-year and the AFC South up 3%.

The record viewing came during a season in which ESPN increased its NFL game inventory for the third consecutive season, now airing 23 regular season games and with the Super Wild Card finale and ESPN’s first Divisional game on the horizon. 

ESPN also reported that Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli averaged 1.24 million viewers this season (nine games), as the show continues to re-write the record books for ESPN’s alternate telecasts. The series aired its second most-watched show ever in Week 11, garnering 1.9 million viewers for Eagles-Chiefs.

The network also reported growth in every key demo with persons 12-17 up 38%; persons 18-24 up 27%; persons 18-49 up 20%; persons 25-54 up 20%; females up 39%.

The results were also buoyed by individual game viewership successes, including airing the four most-watched games since the 2000 season. The Nov. 22, 2023 Philadelphia Eagles at Kansas City Chiefs was the most watched since 2000 with 29,026,000 viewers, followed by the Dec. 25, 2023 Baltimore Ravens at San Francisco 49ers (27,651,000), Dec. 30, 2023 Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys (26,107,000), and Sept. 11, 2023 Buffalo Bills at New York Jets (22,670,000).

 ESPN is reporting that Monday Night Football delivered an audience higher than 25.6 million viewers for the second consecutive game and for the third game in the span of six weeks with the airing of the Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys Monday Night Football Special Edition on Saturday, Dec. 30.  

The Lions-Cowboys audience of 25,663,0000 viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN+, and NFL+) joins Eagles-Chiefs (November 22) and Ravens-49ers (December 25) from this season as the three most-watched Monday Night Football games since 1997.

The large audiences also made the 2023 Monday Night Football season (20 games) officially the most-watched MNF season of the ESPN era (2006 – present), averaging 17.1 million viewers. The television franchise is up 33% year-over-year.

ESPN also reported that the Lions-Cowboys game averaged more than 27 million viewers during a significant portion of the second half (10:30 – 11:15 p.m. ET) and that it was up 92% from ESPN’s Monday Night Football Week 17 in 2021 (Browns-Steelers).

BRISTOL, Conn.—NFL football continues to attract large audiences with ESPN reporting that viewing for the season to date through six weeks is up 6% (averaging more than 15 million viewers) and that the week 6 audience for the Dallas Cowboys at Los Angles Chargers on October 16 was the fifth most popular MNF game ever, garnered more than 19.7 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and NFL+). 

It was also easily the most-watched ESPN MNF Week 6 game, surpassing the Bears-Cardinals in 2006 (14.2 million viewers). The Cowboys-Chargers was up 63% from last year’s week 6 game (Broncos-Chargers).

ESPN reported that the audience peaked at 21.8 million in the fourth quarter (11 – 11:15 p.m.). Monday Night Football was also the most-watched telecast of the night overall and across all key demos. 

Audience levels for the five previous weeks were: 

• Week 1: 22.6 million viewers, ESPN’s most-watched Monday Night Football game
• Week 2 and 3: More than 21.7 million viewers during each of the two hours of overlapping action of two games (8:15 – 10:15 p.m. ET)
• Week 4: 16.6 million viewers, the most-watched Week 4 MNF game in 14 seasons
• Week 5: 17.4 million viewers, the most-watched Week 5 MNF game in the ESPN era

WAYNE, N.J.—As teams got closer to the end zone, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcasts would often bring viewers closer to the action with goal-line close-ups. To so, ESPN worked with Fletcher Sports for the 2017 NFL season, which provided Sony HDC-4800 4K ultra-high frame rate cameras with Fujinon PL 20-120mm Cabrio lenses to capture goal-line plays during game broadcasts.

The combination of the Sony and Fujinon equipment allows Fletcher Sports to use what was once considered a “specialty camera” for live-game production in real time.

“In the past, a lot of 4K and high-frame rate camera systems, once you get up to the ultra-high frame rates, are pretty much there as just a replay tool,” said Ed Andrezjewski, Fletcher Sports program manager. “Now with the camera quality Sony brings and the lens quality Fujinon’s brought on for the 4K cameras, specialty cameras can be cut in live to your regular production.”

High-speed cameras are now being placed at the same level of the main game cameras, which require them to have a wider angle lens. The Fujinon PL 20-120mm Cabrios provided the angle, clarity and speed the broadcast was looking for, enabling camera operators to zoom out to capture every player on the field as well as zoom in to determine if the ball crossed the goal line.

The PL 20-120mm Cabrio lens has a detachable servo drive unit to allow it to be used as a PL lens or an ENG-Style lens. It features flange focal distance adjustment, macro function and is LDS and /I metadata compatible. The lens weighs in at 2.9 kg and features a T stop of T3.5 end-to-end. In addition, it covers a S35-sized sensor; is fitted with a nine-blade iris; and is equipped with all lens data outputs.

ESPN has one more remaining NFL broadcast this season, the AFC Wild Card game between the Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 6.