ESPN Monday Night Football Audience Up 15% for Year

ESPN's Monday Night Football a€" the Pittsburgh Steelers' 23-20 overtime victory over the visiting Baltimore Ravens a€" earned an 8.8 rating, representing an average of 8,595,000 homes (11,783,000 P2+).A For the fourth straight Monday, ESPN won the night in the key male demos among all networks, broadcast or cable, and the game drove significant traffic to ESPN.com's NFL content. For the NFL season to date, ESPN's Monday Night Football is averaging a 9.6 rating and 9,335,000 households (12,972,000 P2+), up 14%, 15% and 20%, respectively from last season through five games (8.4 rating; 8,117,000 homes; 10,767,000 viewers).A For 2008, the five Monday Night Football telecasts represent cable's five biggest audiences of the year.A ESPN's presentation of the "game around the game," which included NFL studio programming startingA at 3:30 p.m. ET through the conclusion of NFL Primetime at 2:40 a.m., delivered 19.1 A gross household coverage ratings for its MNF coverage. ESPN.com Also, NFL content on ESPN.com, including "Monday Night Surround," accessed via computers and mobile devices generated 10.9 million visits and nearly 74.8 million page views a€" an increase of 41% from the same week last year a€" from Monday through Tuesday at noon.A For the season to date, ESPN.com is averaging 87.5 million page views, up 50% from 2007. In addition, during the same period there were nearly 4.4 million views of pro football-related video on ESPN.com and SportsCenter Right Now was viewed some 1.6 million times.A Also, in the past week (Tuesday through Monday) ESPN football-related podcasts were downloaded more than 740,000 times. Source: ESPN OTHER NEWS ACROSS THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS NETWORK Playoff Tickets on Secondary Market Running as High as $3,000 - The Biz of Baseball MLB Players and "Funny or Die" Work to Promote Volunteerism - The Biz of Baseball Upper Deck Releases Sarah Palin and Joe Biden Collectible Trading Cards - The Biz of Baseball MLB Division Series Umpires Announced - The Biz of Baseball For Television, Playoffs Offer Great Match-ups, Interesting Stories - The Biz of Baseball MLB Network Hires Former Exec VP of FSN and Senior VP of NFL Network - The Biz of Baseball TBS Announces Telecast Schedule and Broadcast Teams for MLB Division Series - The Biz of Baseball SEE IT: The 2008 Divison Series Broadcast Schedule - The Biz of Basebal Latest "This is SportsCenter" Ad to Feature Stephen King - The Biz of Baseball Tracy Ringolsby and Maury Brown Debate the MVP Award - The Biz of Baseball Adrian Dantley: Mystery Man - The Biz of Basketball Snapple Offers Knicks Reporter Jill Martin New Career for the Off-Season - The Biz of Basketball Oklahoma City Thunder Sell Out All Season Tickets in Five Days - The Biz of Basketball Great Julius Erving Stories - The Biz of Basketball Alex Ovechkin on Cover of ESPN the Magazine NHL Preview - The Biz of Hockey NHL Reaches Broadcast Agreement in Asia - The Biz of Hockey NHL Pushes Online Profile. Partnership with Yahoo!, Site Redesign, Streaming Games On-Demand - The Biz of HockeyYao Ming on Ice? China Sharks to Place Asia Hockey League Team in Shanghai - The Biz of HockeyHarrah's Drops Out of Group Building Las Vegas Arena - The Biz of Hockey Washington Capitals To See Increase in Number of Games in HD - The Biz of Hockey NHL Players Union Takes NHL to Court Over Pension Dispute - The Biz of Hockey Quinn and DiPofi Become Minority Owners of Sabres - The Biz of Hockey Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer.Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.Don't forget to register and log in on The Biz of Football site to get updates via your in-box, and see information only logged in members can see.