ESPN Sees "Monday Night Football" Ratings Spike Significantly

At least partially due to Jason Witten’s presence in the booth, criticism of Monday Night Football was way up on Twitter during the NFL season.

But, ESPN may not care as ratings for its flagship football show also spiked in 2018.

According to the Worldwide Leader, MNF averaged 11.8 million viewers per game, an eight percent increase from last year. Viewership of the show also increased two percent vs. 2016.

On Mondays it aired, MNF helped ESPN win the night and it was the highest-rated program of the evening 15 of the 16 times it was broadcast. The show was also the most-watched series on cable for the second straight year.

The series’ most-watched game of the season was the Chiefs-Rams thriller on Nov. 19, attracting an audience of seven million viewers.

In addition to Witten, MNF debuted a brand new commentator team in 2018 featuring Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland, and reporter Lisa Salters.

“Other than the Broncos-Raiders finale, which had two teams eliminated from the playoff race, there was usually some reason to tune in for Monday Night Football each week,” according to Yahoo Sports. “Combine that with a good, entertaining season for the NFL as a whole, and it’s no surprise ESPN’s ratings were good. There was never a reason to even pay attention to cries about NFL ratings being down, because those were disingenuous. But NFL ratings have been better this season, and ESPN has to be pretty happy with its results.”