Fewer people tuned in to watch the inaugural broadcast of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” for the 2024 season compared to the same broadcast last year, according to data from Nielsen.
Around 20.5 million American households tuned in to watch some or all of the Monday evening game, which saw the New York Jets take on the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, according to Nielsen data. The viewership figure included simulcasts of Monday Night Football on ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Plus and ESPN Deportes.
The game was expected to generate an immense amount of interest from football fans, given that it marked the return of famed quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets after a season-ending injury suffered during the Week 1 game against the Buffalo Bills last year.
But that wasn’t the case — the Bills game that saw Rodgers suffer from a serious ankle injury during the Jets’ opening drive pulled in 22.7 million viewers to ESPN and ABC, according to Nielsen data.
The smaller audience for Monday’s game might be attributed to an ongoing programming-related dispute between ESPN’s majority owner, the Walt Disney Company, and satellite and streaming TV platform DirecTV. Since September 1, around 9 million DirecTV and U-Verse (formerly AT&T U-Verse) customers have not had access to ESPN and other Disney-owned channels after a carriage agreement between the companies lapsed without a new deal in place.
The dispute is also preventing DirecTV’s satellite customers from watching Disney-owned ABC stations in eight major metropolitan areas, including New York (WABC, Channel 7) and San Francisco (KGO-TV, Channel 7), where the Jets and 49ers call home — meaning fans in both cities who have DirecTV had to use another way to watch the game, or simply not watch it at all. ABC affiliates not owned by Disney are available to watch on DirecTV’s satellite service, but not its streaming platform or U-Verse.
Related: Read the latest news on the DirecTV-Disney dispute
On Tuesday, executives from both companies confirmed there was an offer made at some point during the week that would have allowed DirecTV to provide access to local ABC stations and affiliates for the 2024 Presidential Debate, which ABC News is producing.
While Disney characterized the offer as one that would have allowed DirecTV to carry its streaming news channel, ABC News Live, DirecTV says Disney’s plan was to make its ABC stations and affiliates available to DirecTV and U-Verse subscribers only for three hours, and then the channels would be pulled if a deal was not reached.
DirecTV said the original offer made by Disney was likely to cause a high amount of confusion from subscribers, who might think that the temporary restoration of ABC was proof that a new deal had been reached.
“Unfortunately, returning only Disney’s ABC stations from the entire portfolio of channels for a limited 3-hour window will cause customer confusion among those who would briefly see the debate only to lose the channel again shortly after,” the company said in a statement.
DirecTV countered with a proposal to restore access to ABC, ESPN and other Disney-owned channels like FX and Freeform under a temporary deal that would last through Monday evening, which would give subscribers access to both the presidential debate on ABC and the Week 2 “Monday Night Football” game, which will only air on ESPN.
Disney “flat-out rejected” the counter-offer, DirecTV said.
