ESPN+'s exclusive “Monday Night Football” drawings reach fewer than 2 million viewers

If you missed the second half of this week's ESPN Monday Night Football Doubleheader, you weren't alone.

The game, which pitted the Arizona Cardinals against the Los Angeles Chargers exclusively on the ESPN+ streaming platform, drew an average of less than 2 million viewers. This is reportedly the least-watched NFL game since 2008 Sports Business Journal And Pro football talk.

PFT reported an average viewership of around 1.8 million viewers SBJ stated was “relatively accurate”. In any case, we're talking about the MLB viewership of the almighty NFL.

SBJ points out that there have been several NFL games in recent years that did not have an officially reported audience, including ESPN+'s Toy Story game last year and Yahoo's exclusive Bills-Jaguars game in 2015.

ESPN is booked for one streaming-exclusive game on ESPN+ per season as part of its broadcast deal with the NFL. After years of using those rights to broadcast a game abroad, the global leader announced in May that it would move to a primetime window as part of one of its three games MNF Doubleheader per season.

You have to imagine they wouldn't have shown the ESPN+ exclusive here if they'd known it would pull in record-breaking numbers. As Awful Annending noted last week, ESPN's frustration may be aimed at a few places. Firstly, with the NFL because it kept some European games on the NFL Network to itself. Second, to the schedulers for giving them a poor matchup between the Chargers and Cardinals in this slot (at least in a close game). Third, to Peacock and Netflix for going overboard with buying better streaming-exclusive games a la carte on the first Friday of the season and Christmas Day, respectively.

While ESPN portrayed the change as its own decision, it could be that someone else got in their way.

Still, ESPN+ had nearly 25 million subscribers as of May. While we assume that some of them may only use it for local NHL games or UFC pay-per-views, that is the case MNF The audience makes up less than 8 percent of its subscriber base. And unlike some exclusive events, NFL games are available over-the-air in local markets. So ESPN+ can't even console itself with getting a few new subs in LA and Phoenix.

Although ESPN+ cleverly negotiated some extras for ESPN+ in its NFL deal three years ago, this is the case MNF Viewership numbers appear to show the global leader is struggling to capitalize on this for its subscription service.

[Sports Business Journal, Pro Football Talk]