{"id":397400,"date":"2025-10-24T09:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/397400\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:05:11","slug":"mnf-hits-week-7-high-in-final-doubleheader-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/397400\/","title":{"rendered":"“MNF” hits Week 7 high in final doubleheader week"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN\/ABC hit a Week 7 high for the first half of what may be its final \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d doubleheader.<\/p>\n

In the first half of this week\u2019s \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d doubleheader, Buccaneers-Lions averaged a combined 18.8 million viewers across ABC and ESPN \u2014 marking the largest Week 7 \u201cMNF\u201d audience since Jets-Patriots on ABC in 1998. That is despite the game airing in an early 7 PM ET window and facing competition from the MLB ALCS Game 7 on FOX and FS1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind of course that Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until February.<\/p>\n

The Lions\u2019 win was easily the most-watched game on an \u201cMNF\u201d doubleheader night, not counting the Week 18 Saturday doubleheaders that are part of the \u201cMNF\u201d package. Viewership increased 19% from Ravens-Buccaneers on a doubleheader night last year, which aired in a competing window opposite Chargers-Cardinals on ESPN+.<\/p>\n

In addition, it delivered the second-largest Nielsen-measured audience of Week 7, surpassing NBC\u2019s \u201cSunday Night Football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full doubleheader averaged 12.7 million viewers. ESPN did not disclose figures for the Seahawks-Texans late game in a press release, but the math would indicate an audience around 6.6 million, which would be easily the lowest of the season on the network.<\/p>\n

Week 7 likely marked the final \u201cMNF\u201d doubleheader, as the pending sale of NFL Media assets to ESPN would result in those secondary windows becoming part of NFL Network\u2019s inventory. \u201cWe\u2019re getting out of this side-by-side business,\u201d ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro said over the summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shifting to Sunday action, the NFL national window on FOX (mostly Commanders-Cowboys) averaged an 11.9 rating and 25.63 million viewers \u2014 unsurprisingly down from a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl rematch last year (12.9, 27.08M), but the most-watched NFL telecast of a week in which no other windows hit the 20 million mark.<\/p>\n

The telecast delivered the third-largest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season, behind the previous week\u2019s national window on CBS (mostly 49ers-Buccaneers: 26.9M) and the Week 2 Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch on FOX (33.8M). (Keep in mind that NBC typically combines Nielsen data with Adobe Analytics, and several of those combined figures rank higher.)<\/p>\n

NBC\u2019s \u201cSunday Night Football\u201d (Falcons-49ers) averaged a 9.0 and 17.89 million, down 2% in ratings but up 1% in viewership from Jets-Steelers a year ago (9.2, 17.64M). Given the changes in Nielsen methodology this year \u2014 specifically, its expansion of out-of-home viewing and addition of \u201cBig Data\u201d to its existing panel \u2014 it is almost certain that viewership declined year-over-year, all things being equal. NBC\u2019s usual combined Nielsen and Adobe Analytics figure was not immediately available.<\/p>\n

CBS was not far behind with an 8.4 and 17.84 million for its singleheader window (Raiders-Chiefs in 55% of markets) \u2014 marking the largest audience for that window in Week 7 of the season since 2015, with the caveats regarding Nielsen methodology.<\/p>\n

A bit further back, last week\u2019s \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d game (Steelers-Bengals) averaged a 6.9 and 15.21 million on Amazon\u2019s Prime Video. Officially, viewership increased 55% from Broncos-Saints last year (9.81M), as it is Nielsen policy to compare this year\u2019s \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d figures to last year\u2019s panel-only numbers. But as Amazon disclosed \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d viewership last year, it is possible to render an apples-to-apples comparison. On a \u201cBig Data\u201d basis, viewership increased 43% from 10.64 million.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the Week 7 slate, FOX averaged a 6.8 and 14.13 million for its early doubleheader window and NFL Network drew a 2.6 and 5.26 million for the Rams-Jaguars International Series game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN\/ABC hit a Week 7 high for the first half of what may be its final \u201cMonday Night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[56292,5,56293,56294,56295,56296,56297,56298,56299,36585,56300,56301,15817,56302,56303,56304,56305,56306,56307,56308],"class_list":{"0":"post-397400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-49ers-tv-ratings","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-buccaneers-tv-ratings","11":"tag-chiefs-tv-ratings","12":"tag-commanders-tv-ratings","13":"tag-cowboys-tv-ratings","14":"tag-falcons-tv-ratings","15":"tag-jaguars-tv-ratings","16":"tag-lions-tv-ratings","17":"tag-monday-night-football","18":"tag-nfl-international-games","19":"tag-nfl-national-window","20":"tag-nfl-on-espn","21":"tag-nfl-on-nfl-network","22":"tag-nfl-ratings-2025","23":"tag-nfl-singleheader-window","24":"tag-raiders-tv-ratings","25":"tag-rams-tv-ratings","26":"tag-seahawks-tv-ratings","27":"tag-texans-tv-ratings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115428348863324223","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}