Monday Night Football just not the feature event it used to be

I watched the “Criminal Minds” marathon this past Monday night. Pretty engrossing show, if a bit graphic sometimes.

That’s not the point of my column. Note the date — Monday.

Yes, Monday night, even with the Seattle Seahawks facing — and beating — the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football, I watched a crime drama. That’s unheard of because I am a football fanatic.

It used to be that Monday Night Football was an event. Even without Seattle playing, people would host parties to watch the game and bars would often get standing-room-only crowds to watch. It was a great way to start the week, and end a weekend of sports.

Now, it just seems like another game. It’s not even on one of the major TV networks anymore. Nothing against ESPN – sometimes I don’t think I could live without the network – but MNF seemed to have more national importance when it was on one of the big-three broadcast networks.

Football is all over the place these days. It starts on Thursday night with the NFL’s Thursday Night Football plus some college action.

It continues Friday with more college, and builds to a crescendo on Saturday with so many college games on so many networks that you need multiple TVs to take it all in – if you’re so inclined.

ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, CBS Sports Network, Fox Sports Network, NBC Sports Network, ROOT-TV for local and regional action, SWX for the same. Sunday dials down a bit with the traditional morning and afternoon NFL games, but then finishes with Sunday Night Football.

Leading into Monday. By then, people can be pretty worn out.

Soon, we’ll have the NFL on Saturdays.

MNF viewership has declined over the past several years, but does seem to be picking up. It dropped from 12.9 million on average in 2015 to 10.76 million in 2017, but surged to 11 million last year and after a slow start, is trending upwards this season.

The same can be said for the NFL overall, which after a decline through 2017 saw viewership increase in 2018 and appears to be continuing upwards this season.

Even so, in my opinion, neither will see a return to the glory they experienced – particularly MNF, which was the national game on fall Monday nights in the 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s. The show also had some memorable announcers, and individuals such as Don Meredith, Joe Namath, John Madden and famously, Howard Cosell have gone down in TV and football lore.

Today, MNF for the most part has very competent play callers and color commentators, but nothing approaching any of the aforementioned characters. Too bad – I can remember when the things that Madden, Meredith and Cosell uttered often found themselves working into the American lexicon.

But, as with everything else in life, things move on. Today, Monday Night Football has its audience, but it’s a specific audience, one I think doesn’t branch out too far to grab people who might watch just out of fascination, rather than fans loyal to a certain team and sport.

Monday Night Football will continue, and that’s a good thing. Sports for the most part provide us relief from the day-to-day stresses of our careers and constant bombardment of news and opinion that is the mainstay of other channels.

Still, Criminal Minds is pretty good.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].