ESPN is reporting that Monday Night Football delivered an audience higher than 25.6 million viewers for the second consecutive game and for the third game in the span of six weeks with the airing of the Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys Monday Night Football Special Edition on Saturday, Dec. 30.
The Lions-Cowboys audience of 25,663,0000 viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN+, and NFL+) joins Eagles-Chiefs (November 22) and Ravens-49ers (December 25) from this season as the three most-watched Monday Night Football games since 1997.
The large audiences also made the 2023 Monday Night Football season (20 games) officially the most-watched MNF season of the ESPN era (2006 – present), averaging 17.1 million viewers. The television franchise is up 33% year-over-year.
ESPN also reported that the Lions-Cowboys game averaged more than 27 million viewers during a significant portion of the second half (10:30 – 11:15 p.m. ET) and that it was up 92% from ESPN’s Monday Night Football Week 17 in 2021 (Browns-Steelers).
