No, no. Your eyes are not deceiving you right now. There are two football games on the schedule for Monday Night Football for Week 2. And, yes, they do run concurrently.
On Monday, NFL fans will get to watch the Panthers play the Saints at home at 7:15 p.m. ET. They’ll also get to watch the Steelers take on the Browns an hour later at 8:15 p.m. ET.
The timing is a bit weird, but it’s all part of a new strategy coming from ESPN to figure out what the best strategies for Monday Night Football will be moving forward.
Tonight, we are the NFL’s test dummies. Once again. Let me explain how all of this is going to work.
Wait, so what's going on with Monday Night Football? There's a new schedule?
Well, kind of. So, typically in the past, there’s only been one Monday Night Football week where we’ve gotten a doubleheader. It usually comes in Week 1.
This year, though, we’re getting four of these bad boys:
- Once in both Week 2 and Week 3
- Another one in Week 14 with both games starting at 8:15 p.m. ET
- And another in Week 18 with the time still yet to be determined.
We’re getting a lot more primetime football this year, folks.
YO. That's a lot! Why is this happening?
The funny thing about it is that it’s been going on for a year now.
It’s happening because of a deal between Disney and the NFL that allows the company to broadcast an additional six NFL games per season over the 17 it had previously.
Starting this year, Disney is getting three multi-game MNF weeks along with the Week 18 doubleheader and an exclusive game aired on ESPN+ annually. Tonight’s upcoming MNF matchup is part of that.
OK, that's cool. But, uh, why in the world are these games running at the same time?
Yes! That’s weird, right? Watching two games at one time is extremely hard. Why in the world would ESPN want us to do that?
The answer is the company is actually using us to test different strategies.
ESPN wants us to make a choice here. It wants to see which games we choose to watch at what times and on what network. Company president Burke Magnus said as much in an interview with The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch.
“We’re going to learn more about what optimizes best, and I think by next year we’ll continue to hone on driving the biggest viewership between the two games … We will learn if it is better to start with the ABC game, the ESPN game, or the other way around.”
On top of that, ESPN will be able to flaunt a major bump in its viewership numbers for MNF because it’ll have so many fans watching on its networks at one time between both ABC and ESPN. The numbers are being cooked a bit, but it’s a pretty smart strategy.
Plus, they get both the East Coast and West Coast viewers, right?
Right! You get it. Typically with a doubleheader, we’d see the two games run back to back, which leads to later start times for the second game.
That game would usually involve a West Coast team like, say, the Chargers. For folks on the East Coast, those games could go on until well past midnight. That’s a problem for Tuesday mornings in the office.
Now, with an earlier start time and two concurrent games, ESPN gets to grab the best of both worlds there.
This is a weird strategy, sure. But it’s definitely one that seems pretty smart. Either way, we’re getting more football. And, well, nobody is going to ever say no to that.
