Monday Night Football
live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games
Monday Night Football (often abbreviated as MNF) is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on ABC from 1970 to 2005, before moving exclusively to sister network ESPN from 2006 to 2019. While still airing on ESPN, MNF returned to ABC in 2020 beginning with select simulcasts, later expanding to select exclusive telecasts in 2022, and the bulk of games in simulcast with ESPN since 2023. In addition, ESPN2 features the Manningcast alternate telecast of select games, which was established in 2020, and since 2021, ESPN+ has served as the streaming home of MNF in the United States.
During its initial run on ABC, MNF became one of the longest-running American television series, as well as one of the highest-rated, particularly among male viewers. Since 1993, it has been preceded by the ESPN pregame show Monday Night Countdown. Per an NFL broadcasting policy intended to allow those who do not subscribe to cable or satellite television to see local games televised by a pay television network, the ESPN-exclusive games are also made available on an over-the-air station in each participating team's local market.
MNF is broadcast in Canada on TSN and RDS, in most of Australia on ESPN Australia, in Portugal on Eleven Sports, on TV 2 Sport in Denmark, on Sky Sports/DAZN in the United Kingdom, and in some other regions of the world outside the United States on ESPN International. A Spanish-language version airs on ESPN Deportes in the United States and on ESPN International in Latin America, while a Portuguese version airs on ESPN Brasil.
Overview
History
During the early 1960s, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle envisioned the possibility of playing at least one game weekly during prime time that could be viewed by a greater television audience.
The public source identifies “Monday Night Football” as live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Monday, Night and Football.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Monday Night Football”, the useful work is to connect “live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1088765. VIAF identifies the subject as 184281488. The Library of Congress control number is n80074393. None of the 4 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1970, 2005, 2006 and 2019.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Monday Night Football”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Monday Night Football primary sources, Monday Night Football archive and Monday research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Monday Night Football”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Monday Night Football” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.