Falcons-Saints reportedly drew a record-low 'Monday Night Football' rating
Primetime football games are often some of the most watched programs on television, but that wasn’t the case for Monday night’s NFC South matchup. The high-scoring affair between the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints drew what’s likely to be a record-low in "Monday Night Football" history.
According to Sports Media Watch, the game earned just a 5.7 overnight rating on ESPN. The previous low was a 6.7, which happened on two separate occasions, once in 2007.
The reason behind the low viewership isn’t that Drew Brees and Matt Ryan are boring, or that fans didn’t feel like watching the Saints’ secondary get ripped to shreds yet again. It has to do with the other battle going on at the same time between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Monday night’s presidential debate, the first of three, drew a whopping 80.9 million viewers in America across the 12 networks that carried it, according to CNN. That doesn’t include those who watched at restaurants or bars, or the people who streamed it live online.
The debate earned a 46.2 overnight rating, which is unprecedented for a broadcast outside of the Super Bowl. By comparison, this year’s Super Bowl averaged a household rating of 49.0.
In 2015, the Patriots' victory over the Seahawks drew a 47.5 rating, while Super Bowl 48 earned a 46.4. That just goes to show how many Americans stopped what they were doing to watch Trump and Clinton debate our country's issues for the first time.
The top market for the debate on Monday night was New York, which earned a 55.1. The last time the Giants were in the Super Bowl, New York averaged a 49.7 rating, to give that some context.
This was obviously just a matter of poor timing for the NFL, with the debate falling on the same night as a less-than-exciting game. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, though. The last time a presidential debate competed with a Monday night game was in 2012, when the Lions-Bears drew a 7.3 overnight rating.
