Monday Night Football Game Draws 27.2 Million Viewers

Santa helped bring a big gift to ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

ESPN’s Monday Night game on Christmas night between two of the NFL’s top teams– the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers — brought in more than 27.2 million viewers (ABC, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes), as the 2023 season continues to re-write the Monday Night Football record books.

The Ravens-49ers, with an audience of 27,235,000 viewers, is the second most-watched Monday Night Football game in 27 years (since 1996 season), trailing only the Philadelphia Eagles at Kansas City Chiefs from Week 11 (November 22, 2023) – which also aired on ESPN and ESPN2, in addition to ABC and ESPN+. In short, Monday Night Football has now aired the two most-watched games in 27 years in the span of five weeks.

Simulcasting the game on ABC has been a big boost for football viewership this year since fans don’t have to pay for a cable subscription to watch the game on ESPN.

Year-over-year, the Ravens-49ers audience was up 59% from the primetime game on Christmas in 2022 (Buccaneers at Cardinals) on another network. Focusing on all Christmas day games, the Ravens-49ers ranks among the top four most-watched NFL games across all networks (more than 20 games) since 1994. More highlights:

• In Week 16, Monday Night Football was up 148% year-over-year (Chargers at Colts)
• Ravens-49ers peaked at 31.4 million viewers late in the first half (9:30 – 9:45 p.m.).

Baltimore upset the San Francisco 49ers 33-19.