Monday Night Football To Stay At ESPN Through 2021

Added on Sep 08, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

ESPN has locked up one of the most iconic sports franchises in history ‘Monday Night Football’ through 2021. As part of the deal its reported that ESPN will increase the number of NFL related programs on the network ‘significantly’. The new agreement will begin in 2014 when the current deal between the network and the league ends.

As part of the deal ESPN will air an additional 500 hours of NFL related programming per year beginning immediately. The agreement covers 17 Monday Night Football games a season through 2021, coverage of the Pro Bowl and NFL draft,and rights to broadcast NFL games internationally and through several streaming video channels.

ESPN and the NFL first teamed up in 1980 to cover the annual college player draft. The network began covering regular-season games in 1987 with Sunday Night Football and moved to Monday Night Football in 2006. Eight of the top 10 programs in cable history have been NFL football games on ESPN. ESPN/ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer was obviously pleased to keep the NFL in the fold:

“Today, we’ve secured cable’s most valuable television franchise, along with an enhanced international package of year-round multimedia rights. It will help grow our business well into the next decade. No one has the breadth of worldwide media assets or the ability to monetize a property the way ESPN can, particularly with Monday Night Football and our complete NFL coverage.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gave his take:

“We are proud to extend our three-decade partnership with ESPN. We have come a long way together since ESPN first televised the NFL draft in 1980. With this new agreement we are excited about the opportunity to take the NFL-ESPN partnership to innovative new heights in serving the most passionate fans in sports.”

Part of the new additional programming starting immediately will be an expanded hour of NFL Sunday Countdown. In addition, several new shows are set to debut including “NFL 32″ which will provide team by team coverage on a daily program hosted by Suzy Kolber and Chris Mortensen. “NFL Kickoff” will be a weekly Friday show that will preview every game that weekend. In addition, the network will show additional NFL highlights throughout their program lineup.