Monday Night Football Garners More Than 18.6 Million Viewers, Driving a 57% Year-Over-Year Increase

NFL

Monday Night Football Garners More Than 18.6 Million Viewers, Driving a 57% Year-Over-Year Increase

  • Highest Monday Night Football Week 7 Audience in ESPN Era
  • Monday Night Football Up 10% Year-Over-Year Season-to-Date

ESPN’s Monday Night Football presentation of San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings (October 23, 8:15 p.m. ET) delivered more than 18.6 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+), driving the television franchise to another weekly record during the 2023 season.

The audience of 18,642,000 viewers is MNF’s best Week 7 audience in the ESPN era (2006 – present), surpassing two Giants-Cowboys games, one from 2010 (17,953,000 viewers) and another in 2006 (16,028,000 viewers). The 49ers-Vikings matchup was up 57% from MNF Week 7 in 2022 (11.9 million viewers for Bears at Patriots).

Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli (ESPN2) delivered an audience of 1,068,000 viewers, the alternate telecast’s 23rd consecutive episode with more than a million viewers.

Monday Night Football Up 10% Year-Over-Year, Despite Added Doubleheader
Season-to-date, Monday Night Football is averaging 15.5 million, up 10% inclusive of all linear games (9 games in 2023 vs. 8 games in 2022), despite the Week 3 presentation of two games this fall vs. last season’s singular game in the same week. Excluding this year’s Week 3, Monday Night Football is up 19% year-over-year, averaging 16.7 million viewers.

More on 49ers-Vikings:

  • Peak audience: The audience peaked at 20.7 million viewers (10:45 – 11 p.m.) and averaged more than 20 million viewers throughout the second half (9:45 – 11 p.m.)
  • Most Watched Telecast: Monday Night Football was the most-watched telecast of the night overall and across all key demos

In Week 3 this season, Monday Night Football had two games, with staggered kickoff times on ABC and ESPN (7:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m.). In 2022’s Week 3, Monday Night Football aired Cowboys-Giants on ABC and ESPN. In both seasons’ Week 2, Monday Night Football had two games with staggered start times.

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Media Contacts:
Derek Volner: [email protected]
Lily Blum: [email protected]

 

Derek Volner

I currently lead ESPN’s NFL Communications, including Monday Night Football, NFL Draft and studio programming. Previously, I did the same for ESPN’s vast college football portfolio. I have been with ESPN since 2013.
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