When I was growing up it was always ABC’s Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell, “Dandy” Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. Meredith would often sing ‘Turn out the Lights, the partys over” as one team or another dominated the proceedings and Cosell would often clash with Meredith or insult one or more players. It was fun and it seemed like anything could happen at any moment.
That was then, this is now. Monday Night Football has a home on ESPN and has been there since 2006. Now, it seems, ESPN is determined to hold on to the venerable franchise and has announced a new agreement to keep it until 2021. The cost? A reported $15 Billion.
The new agreement will cost ESPN 73% more than its previous NFL deal which likely means the Disney-owned sports channel will ask cable and satellite companies to pay more. Some other terms of the new deal kick off immediately.
Today ESPN’s NFL Live expands to an hour from a half hour. A discussion show based on fan-submitted questions, Audibles, also joins the Thursday night line up. This weekend Sunday NFL Countdown will run three hours, up from two.
On Tuesday ESPN2 will introduce a weekly, hour-long show NFL 32, followed on Friday by another weekly hour long show NFL Kickoff. Click through for all the details from the official ESPN press release.
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