Monday Night Football (MNF) used to be the crown jewel of the week – one game, one spotlight, one national stage, but with doubleheaders running side by side, it feels more background noise than a primetime event.
MNF doubleheaders aren’t uncommon since the NFL television deal was approved in the 2023 season, according to a Sept. 29 CBS Sports article.
I don’t like the doubleheader format because it takes away from what makes Monday night feel special.
The NFL has 32 teams divided into two conferences, the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference, according to the same NFL webpage.
There are 16 teams in each conference, and they are divided into divisions, east, north, south, and west, according to the same source.
Now with the 17-game schedule, each team gets one extra game against a non-conference opponent.
MNF is supposed to be the game everyone’s watching – the spotlight, the buildup, the storyline, especially if it’s a big game.
It’s meant to feel like a standalone moment in the week where the football world stops and locks in on one matchup.
I hate swapping back and forth between two games in the doubleheader format.
When the league locked in its broadcast agreements in 2021, ESPN and ABC ended up with more games to air, which opened the door for more doubleheaders, according to an Oct.21 CBS Sports article.
The NFL has used MNF doubleheaders before, usually separating them by time zones with one game on the East Coast and another later out West.
But the recent shift is different. Now, ESPN is airing overlapping games more often, which means both matchups can happen at the same time.
We saw this pop up multiple times in 2023, including a week where two games literally kicked off at the same time in December.
In short, the NFL gave ESPN more inventory, and the networks are squeezing those extra games into Monday night.
The NFL’s regular season packs 272 games into 18 weeks, giving fans a steady lineup of big matchups and star players, according to an NFL webpage.
For example, if the 49ers are playing on ESPN, and then there is another game on ABC, I have to change channels, and it doesn’t make it very entertaining.
Now that I have coached football for eight seasons, I can say that football is a sport built on momentum, rhythm and hype.
It takes thousands of cloud-based computers to churn out countless schedule combinations, and from there, the league has to sort through them to figure out which version actually works, according to an NFL webpage.
When I watch two games, especially when they overlap, my focus gets scattered.
I‘m channel flipping and missing big plays because my attention is drawn to another game.
I can only watch one game if there are two games because I can’t focus on two games at once.
By the NFL rolling out two games on a Monday night, it feels like an overcomplicated holiday sale.
During week four of the 2025 season, the NFL had a doubleheader, with matchups between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins and a matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Denver Broncos.
These games aren’t even cleanly separated – they’re stacked on top of each other, leaving fans forced to choose.
Disney and Google spent months trying to hash out a new streaming contract, but when they couldn’t settle things, viewers lost access to ABC and ESPN, according to an Oct. 31 Sports Illustrated article.
Monday Night Football doubleheaders are bad – for fans, players, and the game itself.
In baseball, a doubleheader is played the same day with the same two teams, a few minutes apart.
The energy that comes from a national audience all watching the same thing is gone.
It’s like splitting your attention between two movies – you’re not fully invested in either.
When ESPN and ABC are juggling two productions, you start to see corners get cut.
The NFL talks constantly about “player safety,” but rarely backs it up, especially when money and broadcast deals are involved.
Doubleheaders just make the problem worse because it’s like stretching one good game into two average ones.
MNF should go back to being one game – one stage, one spotlight, one moment for the league to showcase the best of itself, instead of this two games at once nonsense.
