Monday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that primarily broadcast on Monday nights. It was originally broadcast on ABC from 1970 to 2005, before moving exclusively to sister network ESPN in 2006, which remains the main channel for the broadcast. In 2020, MNF returned to ABC in select simulcasts with ESPN, and in 2022, it began featuring select exclusive ABC telecasts. In addition, ESPN2 has aired alternate telecasts of selected games since 2020 as the Manningcast, while ESPN+ has streamed MNF simulcasts in the United States since 2021.
ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Communications.
Kirk Edward Herbstreit is an American sportscaster and former college football player. He serves as an analyst for ESPN's College GameDay, a television program covering college football, and provides color commentary on college football games on ESPN and ABC and Thursday night NFL games on Prime Video. For his TV work, Herbstreit has won five Sports Emmy Awards in various categories. He appeared annually as a commentator in EA Sports' NCAA Football video game until the series was put on hiatus following NCAA Football 14.
The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games in the United States are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any sport in the world. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.
ESPN on ABC is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, in 2006, ABC's sports division was merged into ESPN Inc., which is the parent subsidiary of the cable sports network ESPN that is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, in partnership with Hearst Communications.
The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31, 2006.
NBC Sunday Night Football is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. At the same time, ESPN began broadcasting Monday Night Football when it was dropped from sister network ABC. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1965 until 1997, when CBS took over those rights.
Monday Night Countdown is an American pregame television program that is broadcast on ESPN, preceding its coverage of Monday Night Football. For the network's non-Monday broadcasts, the pregame show is simply titled NFL Countdown. When it debuted in 1993 as NFL Prime Monday, and Monday Night Football was airing on ABC, the pregame show was one of the first cross-pollinations between ESPN and ABC Sports, each of which operated largely under separate management at the time. The show was renamed Monday Night Countdown in 1998 to match its sister show Sunday NFL Countdown, and Monday Night Football moved from ABC to ESPN in 2006. When ABC began airing selected Monday Night Football games in 2016, the network's broadcasts were preceded by simulcasts of Monday Night Countdown. The current sponsor is Panera, starting with the 2023 season. Previous sponsors of the show include UPS, Applebee's, Call of Duty, Courtyard by Marriott and Subway.
ESPN Megacast, formerly known as ESPN Full Circle, is a multi-network simulcast of a single sporting event across multiple ESPN networks and services—with each feed providing a different version of the telecast making use of different features, functions or perspectives. These simulcasts typically involve ESPN's linear television channels and internet streaming platforms, and may occasionally incorporate other Walt Disney Television networks at once.
National television broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games first aired on ABC from 1948 to 1951. Between 1970 and 2005, Monday Night Football aired exclusively on ABC. In 2006, ESPN took over as the exclusive rights holder to Monday Night Football, and the ABC Sports division was merged into ESPN Inc. by parent company Disney. Afterward, ABC did not broadcast any game from the NFL, whether exclusive or a simulcast from ESPN, until they simulcasted an NFL Wild Card playoff game in 2016. ABC would then return to Monday Night Football in 2020, when they aired three games as simulcasts from ESPN.
The following article details the history of Monday Night Football, the weekly broadcast of National Football League games on U.S. television.
The history of the National Football League on television documents the long history of the National Football League on television. The NFL, along with boxing and professional wrestling, was a pioneer of sports broadcasting during a time when baseball and college football were more popular than professional football. Due to the NFL understanding television at an earlier time, they were able to surpass Major League Baseball in the 1960s as the most popular sport in the United States. Today, NFL broadcasting contracts are among the most valuable in the world.
Recently, the NFL's TV broadcasters have suffered annual financial losses because advertising revenue is unable to keep up with the rising costs of broadcast rights.
From 2014 to 2022, CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).
Omaha Productions is an American entertainment company founded by former football quarterback Peyton Manning. It is known for producing Manningcast, an alternate live television broadcast of ESPN's Monday Night Football hosted by Peyton and his brother Eli.
Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, colloquially known as the Manningcast, is an American alternate live television broadcast of Monday Night Football hosted by brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, both former quarterbacks from the National Football League. It is produced by Peyton's production company Omaha Productions. The broadcasts air on ESPN2 and ESPN+ in the United States and TSN+ in Canada.
The NFL on ESPN is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) coverage on the networks of ESPN. NFL coverage first aired on the network in 1980, when ESPN broadcast the 1980 NFL draft. ESPN did not air live NFL games until 1987, when it acquired the rights to Sunday Night Football. In 2006, ESPN lost the rights to Sunday Night Football and began airing Monday Night Football instead.
