‘Monday Night Football’ Sets Record With 22.6 Million Viewers
Just hours after Disney and Charter Communications came to a new carriage deal, ending a 10-day blackout of Disney-owned channels on Charter’s Spectrum cable service, ESPN’s Monday Night Football kicked off record-setting viewership.
More than 22.6 million viewers tuned into the worldwide leader in sports to watch the Buffalo Bills at the New York Jets.
Photo: New York Jets
The game’s record viewership surpassed the 2009 Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers game, which saw Brett Farve return to Lambo Field as a member of the Vikings. That game managed to pull in 21.8 million viewers.
All Eyes Were On Aaron Rodgers
The record audience peaked at 25.2 million viewers in the first half, when the Buffalo Bills took a 10-3 lead into the second quarter.
Photo: New York Jets
The big news coming into the game was Aaron Rodgers’ debut as a member of the New York Jets. The future Hall of Fame quarterback had previously spent his entire 17-year NFL career in Green Bay.
Rodgers only lasted four plays into the Jets’ first drive, however, before coming out of the game with what was later revealed to be an Achilles injury.
Photo: Sports Illustrated
‘Monday Night Football’ Was Up From 2022
The 2023 Monday Night Football opener was up 14% from last year’s first broadcast, which saw 19.8 million viewers tune in to watch the Denver Broncos take on the Seattle Seahawks. At the time that game aired, it set a Monday Night Football Week 1 record.
Over on ESPN, Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli also set record viewership numbers with an audience of 1.52 million. That number was up from the show’s 2022 debut.
Photo: Sporting News
Peyton and Eli also now hold all 20 of ESPN’s most-watched alternate telecasts.
On a macro level, Monday Night Football continues to be a wild success for ESPN. The franchise has now delivered three of the five most-watched ESPN telecasts in the last two years. Additionally, ESPN has now surpassed 19 million viewers in each of the standalone September games in the last two years.
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