The one NFL broadcast partner that has shown consistent, albeit slow growth this year, has been Monday Night Football. However, after the Week 10 edition of Miami-Carolina, even that’s not happening anymore.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the Dolphins and Panthers drew a 6.2 rating, the fourth worst rating ESPN has suffered since they began broadcasting Monday Night Football in 2006. Only one other MNF game this year did worse than Miami-Carolina, and that was the Week 6 Titans-Colts match-up, which drew a 6.1.
However, one can almost forgive the poor rating for the Titans-Colts game when you consider that it went up against the MLB playoffs. The fact that the Panthers and Dolphins were basically consistent with that low number without having to contend with something like the MLB postseason, has to set off alarm bells at NFL headquarters.
The game didn’t just do poorly nationally, it also flopped locally. The game recorded a 12.1 rating in Miami, a generally poor showing in a local market. That number looks even worse when you note that Saturday night’s clash between Notre Dame and the Miami Hurricanes, drew a 15.1.
The game also fell 18 percent from last week’s edition of Monday Night Football, and a whopping 22 percent decline from last year’s Week 10 MNF game between the Giants and the Bengals.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.