Anchored by Monday Night Football, ESPN’s first half of the 2025 NFL season is seeing viewership gains across its entire game and studio shows, with numerous multi-year highs or near-record numbers. Monday Night Football is on pace for its second-highest audience in its 20 seasons on ESPN, while Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, and NFL Live are all experiencing their best audience in at least six seasons, while impressively up double-digits year-over-year.
Monday Night Football’s strong first half sets the foundation for its second half, which begins tonight with the Eagles and Packers (November 10, 8 p.m. ET) at Lambeau Field, in a matchup of NFL division leaders.
Monday Night Football has reached 109 million fans through Week 9 (13 games), up 15% from the same point in 2024 (11 games), while averaging 15.2 million fans per game (13 games). The average audience of 15.2 million fans is ESPN’s second highest through Week 9, dating back to 2006 when ESPN first began airing Monday Night Football, and up 6% comparatively through Week 9 in 2024
Excluding MNF’s Week 4 and Week 6 this season, the two weeks ESPN had one game on ABC and a second on ESPN with overlapping action, ESPN’s Monday Night Football viewership jumped to 17.1 million viewers (9 games). This impressive number includes MNF Week 2 and Week 7, when ESPN aired a true doubleheader with a 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. kickoff.
ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown is averaging 1.5 million viewers per show, up 20% year-over-year, while Sunday NFL Countdown is averaging 1.3 million viewers, up 11% year-over-year. In addition to growing their audience from the 2024 season, both shows are experiencing multi-year highs, with Monday Night Countdown delivering its best audience since 2017 and Sunday NFL Countdown its best since 2019.
NFL Live, ESPN’s daily NFL show, is off to the show’s best start since 2016 and up 20% year-over-year, delivering 440,000 viewers per show.