NFL on ESPN

• 1. An Unlikely Beginning

  ›

  NFL on ESPN arrived not as a broadcast institution but as a question mark. In 1979, ESPN president Chet Simmons approached the NFL about letting his young cable network air the annual player draft. Commissioner Pete Rozelle granted permission despite his doubts about how many people would watch. When the first draft aired in 1980, Bob Ley anchored coverage from Bristol, Connecticut. Howard Balzer, Upton Bell, and Vince Papale sat alongside him as studio analysts. Joe Thomas and four reporters covered the event in person in New York City. At the time, ESPN reached just 4 million American homes. Despite that modest reach, the NFL considered the initial broadcast a success. Former commissioner Paul Tagliabue later credited ESPN with turning "a potential six- or seven-hour television experience into a twelve-hour television experience." In 1988, the NFL moved the draft from weekdays to the weekend, and ESPN's ratings improved dramatically. It was the first sign that the cable network was becoming genuinely important to how Americans followed the league.

  342

• 2. Born from a Dead League

  ›

  In 1986, ESPN was scheduled to carry weekly Sunday night games for the United States Football League. That rival professional circuit was attempting to shift its schedule to the fall, but the season never happened. When the USFL plans collapsed, ESPN applied the same Sunday night concept to the NFL instead. In 1987, the league granted ESPN the rights to air games on Sunday nights throughout the second half of the regular season. This made the NFL the last major North American professional sports league to begin airing its games on cable television. Each game was typically simulcast on over-the-air local stations in each participating team's home market. Fans without cable could still watch their team play. ABC had been airing occasional Sunday night games since 1978, but only sporadically and under the Monday Night Football banner. A dedicated, regular weekly Sunday night cable schedule was genuinely new ground. The 1989 television contract between the NFL and ABC awarded ABC rights to Super Bowl XXV and Super Bowl XXIX. It also gave ABC the first round of the NFL playoffs. The Monday Night Football announcing team called both Super Bowls and one of the two Wild Card games each year. ESPN's Sunday Night crew of Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann called the other Wild Card game. From 1990 through 1995, that ESPN slot was handled by Brent Musburger and Dick Vermeil instead. Both men also called college football for ABC during those same seasons. In 1996, The Walt Disney Company purchased both ESPN and ABC, an acquisition that would change how the two networks operated together.

  56

• 3. Two Networks, One Team

  ›

  Beginning with the 1997 season, ESPN's Sunday Night Football crew called the first Monday Night Football game of each season on ABC. The ABC Monday Night Football crew called the second. ESPN wrapped both telecasts with pregame and postgame programming, part of which also aired on ABC. Ron Jaworski regularly appeared from the ESPN studio to provide extra analysis during the first game. The arrangement ran continuously from 1997 through 2005, with one exception: in 2002, ESPN and ABC's combined college football crew handled the early-season game. During this period, Super Bowl telecasts on ABC were treated as ESPN events. By 2003, declining ratings had prompted ABC and the NFL to drop the final-week Monday Night Football game. That practice of skipping the final week had been standard during MNF's first eight seasons, from 1970 through 1977. A team playing MNF in the final regular season week had only four days of rest before its first playoff game. ABC replaced the dropped broadcast with an opening-weekend Thursday night game. ESPN gained a Saturday night game on the final weekend in exchange. After the 2005 season, ESPN took on a new package with a longer broadcast history than anything it had held before.

  56

• 4. Cable's Playoff Experiment

  ›

  NBC acquired the Sunday Night Football rights that ESPN had long held, and ESPN began airing Monday Night Football starting in 2006. To fill the open weeks, ESPN moved its late-season Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts back to the network. It replaced the remaining gaps with other sports telecasts. A 2011 rights agreement gave ESPN exclusive rights to the Pro Bowl from 2015 through 2022, with the game simulcast on ABC since 2018. On the 22nd of April 2014, the NFL announced it was exercising a contract option that would give ESPN the right to air a first-round Wild Card playoff game after the 2014 season. It was the first time an NFL playoff game would air exclusively on cable in the United States. No broadcast network would carry it nationally. The announcing team of Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden, and sideline reporter Lisa Salters called the game. The Carolina Panthers, that year's NFC South champions, defeated the Arizona Cardinals 27-16. The cable-only broadcast still complied with the NFL's local market rule; WJZY, a Fox affiliate in Charlotte, and KASW, a CW affiliate in Phoenix, simulcast the game over the air. On the 11th of May 2015, the NFL announced that ABC would begin simulcasting ESPN's Wild Card game starting with that fall's season. It was the first time an NFL game aired nationally on ABC since Monday Night Football left the network after 2005. The broadcast team of Tirico, Gruden, and Salters called that game as well. The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Houston Texans 30-0, and the ESPN/ABC arrangement held. Six years later, a new rights deal would substantially expand the scope of what ESPN could broadcast.

  7891011

• 5. A Deal Through 2033

  ›

  On the 18th of March 2021, the NFL confirmed a sweeping renewal of its agreement with ESPN. Beginning that fall, ESPN would air a Saturday doubleheader on the final weekend of the regular season, simulcast on ABC. Starting in 2022, two additional regular season games joined the schedule. One aired on ABC as a Monday split doubleheader; the other streamed exclusively on ESPN+. From 2023 onward, the total Monday split doubleheaders on ABC grew to three per season. Flex scheduling began in Week 12, giving ESPN the ability to adjust late-season matchups. ESPN also gained the right to feature up to four teams twice per season, and began producing alternate broadcast feeds under its Megacast series. All Monday Night Football games airing on ABC would also stream on ESPN+. The deal delivered two future Super Bowls to the package: 2027 and 2031. It also added a divisional playoff game to ESPN's postseason coverage. Joe Buck took over as the lead play-by-play voice for Monday Night Football in 2022. Troy Aikman joined as lead color commentator the same year. Jason Kelce joined the studio team in 2024. In January 2024, reports emerged that the NFL was in advanced discussions with The Walt Disney Company about acquiring an ownership stake in ESPN. Under that proposal, the NFL would gain a share of the network. Any such deal would require approval from a majority of NFL team owners. If completed, it would give the league an ownership position in ESPN while handing Walt Disney control of NFL Network and NFL RedZone.

  11314