www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/weekly-espn-abc-simulcasts-of-monday-night-football-will-end-in-2024
Weekly ESPN/ABC simulcasts of Monday Night Football will end in 2024
My biggest gripe is that ESPN won't let you get around having a cable subscription to watch MNF. You can't watch live ESPN with EPSN+, so what's even the point of that service?
I personally wouldn't mind dropping $10 or whatever to be able to watch 4 MNF games a month but I can't justify a $70 cable subscription when the only thing I care to watch live is football.
ESPN+ is great for getting around the cable channel mosaic necessary to watch out of network hockey, but otherwise idk why anyone would sign up
It has lots of college sports that otherwise didn’t have a broadcast option before.
Or if you're a fan of a struggling team, 95% of your games that would have been on tv are put onto it to fulfill conference contract obligations.
Pretty good for soccer too (all Bundesliga and La Liga games, plus some Championship, Eredivise among other leagues) and great for NHL too (has all out-of-market NHL games).
Formula one as well, that and soccer is what I keep it around for
Yeah, I had it the last two years for college football but for my two teams, Tennessee is never on there because SEC is always televised or SEC+ and ECU sucks, so I probably won’t subscribe again.
As an out of market hockey fan it's about 90% of the reason I keep it, add in another 10% for mediocre college football and Bundesliga. I wouldn't keep it if it got expensive though.
Soccer
what?
Comes in the Hulu package, only reason I have it.
Same. They offer just Disney+ and Hulu as a bundle, but it has ads. I tried seeing what it would cost without the ads, but they make they don't make it obvious.
The bundle with ESPN+ and no ads is still cheaper than just Disney+ and Hulu with no ads.
CFL football was on it, but now streams on the CFL site.
So I can watch more sports. As my local channel continues to get worse feed, I would prefer ESPN+. It’s the only way I can follow ABC NBA playoff games. As ABC is not working for me.
Wouldn't want to pay for it if I didn't move out of my hockey team's TV market. Nothing else on ESPN+ is worth a subscription
I literally only have it because it's thrown in on the Disney Bundle (Subscribing to Hulu and Disney+ individually would be more expensive than the bundle).
But it is nice if you like pga golf and college sports. Those are on there all the time.
ESPN+ is great if you like a specific sport that airs on it.
It’s a godsend for college softball. I believe it has a lot of NHL and soccer as well.
I truly hate ESPN, but + is pretty clutch for me.
I personally wouldn't mind dropping $10 or whatever to be able to watch 4 MNF games a month but I can't justify a $70 cable subscription when the only thing I care to watch live is football.
This captures my feelings exactly. I am not going to dish out $70 bucks a month just to watch MNF. I'll just suck it up and miss the games which aren't simulcast on ABC.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You’d figure that your ratings would be much higher on a channel that everyone gets for free. Higher ratings means higher ad revenue which is what this is all about in the first place. The networks lose money on the broadcasts. Every time. They make their profits by advertising other programs and earning as revenue for those programs. The NFL is nothing but a loss leader but it makes them relevant.
Most of the money ESPN makes comes from carriage fees. Anybody that has a cable or streaming package that includes ESPN is automatically paying $9-10 a month for it (by far the highest of any cable channel).
In order to justify that price to cable/streaming companies, they need to have a lot of valuable, exclusive content that people want to watch (like MNF).
Yeah - if you want to blame anyone blame the NFL. They had the power to keep it on ABC (way back ~20 years ago when it initially moved to ESPN) and still do, but they decided fan access means less to them than more money from Disney to make it cable-exclusive.
This will be said in 10+ years about the playoffs.
Correct. And cable companies were NOT happy about this for that reason.
NFL+ subscription. It gives you access to the local game in your area and other one off games like MNF.
Because it costs more than $10 a month for what you want if they did it a la cart.
While it's stupid NFL+ limits live games to phone & tablet. I do enjoy watching Texans games on my tablet then having red zone on the TV on Sundays during the season then canceling it after the playoffs.
NFL+ allows me to watch the primteitme games as well
what's even the point of that service
It's a complement to linear ESPN, not a replacement for it 🤦♂️ I use it to watch lots of college sports, soccer, etc. that would never air on an actual network.
Do you realize that NFL+ is $15/month (usually goes on sale for $10/month) and includes all national games (MNF, TNF, Saturday games, ESPN, Peacock, NFL network etc) as well as Redzone and all your zipcode's local Sunday games? Also includes your choice of MNF broadcasts (Troy/Buck or Manningcast)
I want to watch on a TV, not a phone.
There was TV/cast support this past season for redzone and the out of market games
It only lets you watch on a phone or tablet though right?
There was TV/cast support this past season for redzone and the out of market games
I think the Peacock games were the only ones that forced me to watch on my tablet. But it is sometimes a thing.
I was able to watch on a Shield.
I was able to get it on my Xbox
What if you screen mirror?
Haven't tried it in a while but it blocks it in my experience
Don't you love having all this modern technology that allows us to do all these cool things just for the billion dollar businesses to tell us "nah fuck you"?
Yeah, it might also be device/host dependent.. people with iOS devices will have issues with firesticks/android tv's, vice versa, it will lock out any phone/tablet to HDMI adapters and whatnot.
There are some workarounds, but it's not for the masses, and most peoples brother or parents or whatnot aren't gonna deal with that noise.
That’d be my go to if they ever let you watch it on a TV. I want to watch football on my big screen tv not my phone
I watched the NFL app off my firestick
Word? I’ll have to try that out this season
Is that an app?
I did not...
Can you cast it from your phone/tablet onto your tv or no?
Firestick
You can get an hd antenna for like $30 as a one-time expense and then watch like...most games worth watching and pirate the rest.
Lmfao I’m sure you wouldn’t mind dropping $10 a month. Problem is is that’s so wildly unreasonable. No shot it’s ever that cheap.
Exactly
You can't watch live ESPN with EPSN+, so what's even the point of that service?
Smaller school college sports typically, ECU ends up with quite a few football games on there
I just listen to the homer radio calls instead, becasue ESPN+ are student run productions and can be very, very, very dire.
Wasn’t it mainly done for the writers strike.
Correct, Disney needs to keep ESPN stashed with prime information so it's worth something to cable companies
First of all, it wipes out an entire night of ABC's lineup (Yes, I realize it gets much better ratings than anything else they'd stick in there).
Second of all, cable companies were royally pissed at this because they pay a gigantic carriage fee to ESPN and their biggest rating generator was simulcast on ABC, which is free. They'd have revolted if they did this again.
Thirdly, it even says in the article that there will still be 6 simulcasts and 3 abc exclusives (I don't think there's been an ABC exclusive game in like 20 years). So it's dropping from 15... to 9. Not that bad.
And if you have ESPN+, you can still watch the manning cast games. The game isn't really the main focus, but it's there.
Why would anyone upvote that? I guess it means that if you're not willing to pay, you have no right to the NFL.....it's biting the hands that fed them and built them up into something for decades. Way for them to show gratitude those greedy #@$&#@§¥!
The only reason they did it was because of Covid and then the writers strike, so of course they would change it back.
Not surprised at all.
Not too surprising, abc has a full schedule now and broadcasting the game on three channels at once was silly even if it served a purpose.
Have to imagine MNF is one of the few things that keeps that cable money coming in for espn
Gotta keep cranking out those Golden Bachelor shows
Everyone that shits on reality shows need to realize that reality slop to women is the same as sports to men. They have their favourite franchises and players (people). And they despise others. It's what gets talked about the next day at work on breaks and there is HEATED debate online over who did what.
Anyone that gets casted in any of these shows can also instantly pivot into being an influencer because of how large a following they will get in a blink of an eye of people that will dedicate their life to following what their favourite reality star is doing and who they're dating now. It's actual insanity. Until you look at what men do with sports.
You may poo pop those shows and I may not be a fan either...but those shows have a FOLLOWING. Idk if that is a good thing for society but there is real cash and ratings to be had there. And people will watch shows like that live because they wanna keep up with online conversation. I've seen my mother, sisters, and gf do it too often ATP.
Yeah. Part of the gambit I imagine was to get people used to watching mnf and hopefully paying to regain access.
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28d
I guess I will end watching MNF weekly. Have to go somewhere for the Eagles.
You can always sail the high seas
ALWAYS 🫡🏴☠️
Take a Byte out of crime you pirate scum
I'm a chord cutter who hasn't paid to watch football in ten years. It is fantastically easy to stream.
The NBC paid app freezes for me more often than some streaming sites.
The wife watches her reality TV schlock on the streaming services and it is so funny to watch those apps constantly buffer and stutter, even at the low bitrate they provide. They're garbage.
Meanwhile my Plex server, the only thing I use, presents everything in perfect quality and runs like butter.
The question here is then why do you make your wife go through all that instead of just downloading all her favourite reality slop to your Plex?
It takes up an insane amount of room. There are about 20 different shows she might watch with some having 15 seasons. She drops in and drops out of seasons and shows like a madman, and half the time she just has them on in the background.
I usually keep Below Deck and Below Deck Mediterranean on there for her since those are consistent favorites, but I'm not going to add Rock of Love because she watched two episodes when she's going to stop and switch to the Kardashians halfway through.
If she asks me specifically, I'd probably add something.
Paramount was like that for me when it first launched. I just put my eye patch back on to watch Star Trek and stuff until they made it better.
Fix your internet then…
Peacock has never once acted up on me
I can't imagine paying for cable and two or three additional streaming services just to watch a game or two a week. Fucking ridiculous. I've been sailing for almost a decade, no regrets.
Well, terrible people tend to not have regrets
My Internet is fine, it's a problem with their live stream. The stream will have a minor hiccup and the video will freeze but the audio continues. If I rewind a bit so the stream is 30 seconds or more behind live it works fine. It is a problem with the app, I've seen it happen at other places, and has been annoying for years.
Same, but it's always better to watch it on antenna
Local games will be broadcast on ABC
good thing NFL is such a regional sport where only the small local broadcast areas actually care to watch
I live in Bronco country. So…
So you're all set to become a Broncos fan. One of us.
My friend is a Broncos fan in Cardinals country, I'll have to tell her about this.
...so God bless Bo Nix?
I didn’t realize they had actual sports teams to watch in Philly.
This is probably phase one in the plan to move it to espn's streaming platform that's barreling into becoming a reality
Nah. ESPN is owned by the same umbrella company that owns Hulu and Disney+. And they're already taking steps to merge those two apps together.
I doubt that ESPN gets its own platform. Instead, it's more likely that they're going to bundle it all up into a $5/10 package on Hulu. They still bring in the monthly dues, but don't have to develop/maintain an entirely new streaming platform.
Who out there at Disney thinks more people would watch some old hag try to shag a bunch of old dudes on Viagra instead of NFL football?
It’s the opposite. They know people want to watch the football more, so by gating it behind ESPN they can get more people to pay cable fees or ESPN+ subscription fees to watch it. Ads will sell for a little less than they would for an OTA broadcast, but they will make more money overall because they get the fees for ESPN on top of the ad money.
lol espn+ doesn’t even have the games
honestly ESPN+ may be the most useless subscription service
Wait, you don't want to pay $110 plus tax to watch Ohio Valley Conference field hockey and Toy Story games?
Depends on what you like. If you're a fan of mid-major college basketball, the NHL and soccer, it's one of the biggest steals out there.
Meanwhile Peacock and Paramount+ have SNF and the AFC slots available on their lowest paid tier.
These games are also OTA. So most of the population could watch with an antenna. They are trying to get some revenue from these folks. I have an antenna for when soccer is out of season (EPL for peacock, champions league/seria a for paramount). Highly recommend.
True. I just like that it’s an option for when I’m away from a TV or in an area like an airport where I might not have control of the TV.
Guess they realized that people preferred football over that garbage.
Sports is reality TV for men.
Why target 1 demographic over 2 channels when you can target 2 demographics over 2 channels?
Dancing with the Stars strikes again I guess? Lol
I don't care to look up the numbers but surely mnf did better veiweship than dwts did.
There isn’t a single thing on tv nowadays that will out-rate the NFL besides anything related to a presidential election.
Is that true
Yeah, regular NFL games (ie not even the playoffs/SB) pull in more than pretty much any other broadcast including like NBA finals and the World Series. Only some major event shows or whatever really beat them.
An average SNF game will quadruple every sports finals but the nba finals.
But now the Disney family gets viewers for Monday Night Football AND Dancing With The Stars…
And guess which one more people are gonna flock to… (Hint: NOT the one with so-called “Celebrities” that 99.9% of the population have never even heard of.)
Which just goes to show why this is a smart move for the Disney family…they’ll make more money having a game everyone will watch on a channel people will pay for…
No it was one of those stupid Bachelor shows that nobody ever watches.
Except for the millions of people that do.
Everyone lost their mind about peacock but no one minds paying $40+ a month to watch MNF
Meaning on cable? Because if so, you get far more for $40. You get all your local broadcasts, afternoon national games, SNF, and MNF, assuming your provider is contracted with the necessary networks. The Peacock stuff caused an uproar with the people who didn’t originally have it and had to essentially pay for a month’s service of something they didn’t want for one game.
Local broadcasts and your local team playing (subject to blackout) is available with an antenna. For free. These details should not go into the calculus of buying cable.
Local broadcasts of the other three major sports leagues, as well as local colleges, is the real benefit of cable for a sports fan.
The fees for the RSNs take you above the $40 threshold though so those shouldn't be factored in either
That’s assuming the average Joe is going to go through the trouble of buying an antenna, positioning it, wiring it, etc. versus paying for a standard cable package.
And despite living in Michigan, my "local team" is green bay. Only a cable package can bypass that. Sometimes, an antenna won't fix the problem even if you are willing to set it up.
It takes all of 30 seconds and 10 bucks to install an antenna lol
I would literally have to move to get an antenna to pull in ABC…
I live on a hill outside Portland. My antenna gets 1 of the local channels and I have to put the antenna in the middle of the window where my toddler and cat can get to it.
I live in Rochester, I can literally be downtown in 10 minutes. I’ve tried multiple antennas anywhere it would be feasible to have a TV in my house…if I’m really lucky I can get CBS to cut in and out on me which is better than ABC/NBC/FOX
I’m not sure why people think antennas are some magic cure all for everyone
The trouble of… plugging it in and sitting the antenna on the windowsill? For a one-time $10 payment?
Clearly you have no idea how many people live somewhere that antennas don’t actually work…
You don’t need to get a roof antenna for local broadcasts. Just a tiny household one you put in your tv console. You’re making a meal of this 😂
And then get the local broadcast signal to actually reach my house…
It isn’t nearly as easily as your delusional take for a lot of people…
Not really. I just think that in this age of streaming that the number of people who would opt for a cable package would outweigh people using an antenna for local broadcasts. I could be wrong but that’s my perception.
Living in the age of streaming is exactly why people aren't willing to pay for a cable subscription anymore.
You have the timeline backwards.
There's only a few uses that cable has over streaming, and an antenna covers pretty much all of them.
People who care about their money will, lmao.
If 40 a month is effectively pennies to you, then yeah, I guess it isn't worth the 20 minutes.
I've had an antenna set up for years now because cable lost it's value long ago.
You do know all you have to do is plug in one thing and you're good to go right?
The peacock stuff caused an uproar with the people who didn’t originally have it and had to essentially pay for a months service of something they didn’t want
That’s the same as cable. I do not want cable and ESPN basically gives me no other option other than paying for a cable subscription. There is nothing I’d watch on cable other than the things you mentioned but those are local broadcasts (which are free) and SNF which is available for $5 a month through peacock (less if you got it during the promotional period).
So the value proposition is to pay an extra $35 for a service I don’t want which is the same thing everyone was up in arms about with peacock. Idk why there isn’t more backlash to espn for doing the same thing.
Just wait until people realize that the Packers/Eagles game in Brazil is behind the Peacock Paywall (unless you live in either the Green Bay or Philly Markets)
I think people only "lost their mind" about what it represents - the NFL is fucking over fans in pursuit of easy money. No matter what they say, it's not going to stop at one game paywalled behind streaming services. Super bowl behind a streaming service, PPV, getting rid of local OTA broadcasts, etc. - it's all in play if someone throws enough money at the NFL.
The exact same reaction happened (without social media) when the NFL let Disney take MNF off of ABC years ago, and same thing when they introduced TNF on cable. It's just been 20 years so the outrage has died down.
They're not going to do anything that fans don't broadly accept, so I think it's a bit dramatic to paint it as "screwing fans over"
If the fans didn't pay for Peacock when the game was on it, then the NFL would have listened, but fans clearly have no real issue doing that.
I streamed it "illegally", and if people GENUINELY took issue with how NFL games are broadcast, they would use those streams more often, leading to a dip in viewership, but that hasn't happened yet, so blame the fans, not the NFL.
This is a hot take disguised as a news report.
That's a big FU to fans who don't want to have to splurge on ESPN+ to watch a game. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised. After putting a playoff game on Peacock exclusively, it seems the NFL is leaning towards pulling as many dollars out of the audience as possible.
Time to dust off the Jolly Rodger
so it will be only on ESPN ?
No .. pornhub exclusive
NFL fucks viewers
L for antenna users but I'll just sail the seas
As a Canadian viewer, it comforts me that the simulcasts will still exist, even though it doesn’t affect me at all.
Then let ABC have a Sunday afternoon game/games.
ABC and ESPN are the same company and only have rights for MNF
ABC and ESPN are the same company and only have rights for MNF
End the Thursday night casts.
I agree with you, however Amazon pays $1 billion per year for Thursday Night Football. It's not going away anytime soon.
I know 😔
Those are at least available for free on Twitch, which has been getting broader support on smart TVs and is easy to cast.
I don't get why people would want to end them, the most convenient game to watch every week.
(I get wanting to get rid of short-week games, maybe that's what people mean and I'm confused)
Why? they're one of the only games guaranteed to be watchable for free every week.
You can watch them for free on Twitch.
Honestly, ESPN games are the only ones I don't like because I have not paid for ESPN in years.
I use ABC off my dad's small cable package to get MNF (he doesn't get ESPN since he changed his sub to only get a small amount of channels).
To the high seas we go
🏴☠️
Be nice if it was on espn+
Yep, you knew this was going to happen especially with the new ESPN streaming venture coming this fall.
So what will happen with the ManningCast on MNF. They are entertaining and make a boring game enjoyable.
I think we are a maximum of 10 years away from the NFL attempting to air 100% of their games exclusively on Sunday ticket and making it a pay to watch sport.
You didn't think very hard then.
Ugh cable needs to die, just give me an internet subscription for all the games, already. Fuck watching network games, you're basically paying top dollar to watch 2 hours of dumbass truck commercials aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Until then I'll be watching Red Zone.
Nobody cares, they’re all watching Manningcast
Manningcast fell off hard. Has some funny moments each week but it turned into celebrities advertising themselves with really no discussion even fun ones
exactly. It was good the first couple times they did it-then they tried to figure out how to make as much money off of it as possible
The Arrny segment killed me. I think they were talking about his new book and a big play happened and you can see it on Payton's face that he wanted to react hard to it but had to stay silent.
The people this affects can’t get the Manningcast
smart decision. too many fans liked it