ESPN Picks Up Mobile Streaming Rights for Monday Night Football

Deal begins with upcoming Wild Card Weekend and extends through end of 2021 season

Mobile streaming rights in the National Football League continue to shake out following the restructuring of the league’s Verizon deal. Now ESPN has scooped up the rights to live streaming of Monday Night Football (MNF) for ESPN subscribers to mobile phones. The announcement comes days after NBC Sports acquired the same rights for its Sunday Night Football package.

For ESPN, the expanded mobile rights begins on Jan. 6-7 with Wild Card Weekend and extends through the duration of the network’s current rights deal that runs though the end of the 2021 season. Through this deal, ESPN can deliver NFL highlights and stream MNF on an authenticated basis to fans on ESPN-branded digital properties across all devices and platforms.

“Every day, tens of millions of fans turn to ESPN to stream events, view highlights and connect with the latest sports news and stories, so we’re thrilled that they will now be able to enjoy Monday Night Football and the latest NFL highlights as part of their experience on mobile phones as well,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN executive vice president, programming and scheduling.

ESPN could already stream its many NFL-branded studio shows – Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, NFL Live, etc. – across all devices including computers, phones, tablets, connected TVs and OTT devices (such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast and more), while MNF streaming included those platforms with the exception of mobile phones.

Through 14 weeks (15 games) this season, ESPN’s MNF is averaging 10.8 million viewers (TV, plus streaming on tablets and OTT devices).