In Week 3, ESPN’s Monday Night Football featured two games, with staggered start times of 7:30 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. ET, resulting in more than 2 hours of overlap. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills aired on ESPN/ESPN Deportes, followed by the Washington Commanders and Cincinnati Bengals on ABC/ESPN+. The result showed strong audiences across ESPN platforms.
The two games averaged more than 19 million viewers during the overlap time between 8:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET. The peak was 20.4 million viewers which came between 9:15 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. ET.
The Jacksonville-Buffalo game was a blowout win for the Bills 47-10, however, the second game between Washington and Cincinatti came down to the wire with the Commanders hanging on for a 38-33 win. With the exciting finish, the game averaged 15.2 million viewers from 10:30 p.m. ET – 11 p.m. ET. The full game averaged 13.2 million viewers.
Next Monday night, another staggered start doubleheader will have the Tennessee Titans at the Miami Dolphins starting at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN followed by the Seattle Seahawks at the Detroit Lions starting at 8:15 p.m. ET on ABC.
