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).
