Hot on the heels of NBC’s announcement that football fans will now be able to watch their favorite sport on Sunday nights on their mobile devices, ESPN is saying, “Me too.” The sports network has newly reached an agreement with the National Football League to expand its own live-streaming of Monday Night Football for ESPN subscribers to smartphones, which means that soon, you’ll be able to watch athletes on the gridiron just about every day of the week from just about any device. The new agreement also includes NFL highlights on mobile devices, and will run through the end of ESPN’s current NFL agreement, which concludes with the 2021 season.
Beginning January 6 and 7 with the upcoming NFL Wild Card Weekend, ESPN will be able to show football fans NFL highlights as well as Monday Night Football games across all devices and platforms. While ESPN could previously stream various NFL-branded studio shows like Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, and NFL Live to mobile devices, Monday Night Football served as an unfortunate exception. But now, nearly all of ESPN’s most popular programming can be accessed using computers, tablets, connected TVs, and smartphones, too.
“Every day, tens of millions of fans turn to ESPN to stream events, view highlights and connect with the latest sports news and stories, so we’re thrilled that they will now be able to enjoy Monday Night Football and the latest NFL highlights as part of their experience on mobile phones as well,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN executive vice president for programming and scheduling.
The new NFL agreement should help boost ESPN’s already gargantuan numbers when it comes to its digital platform — the network reports that around 117 million users tune in to ESPN Digital each month, which is said to be more than the second, third, and fourth largest sports properties combined. Further, the ESPN app claims to be the most popular sports app on the market, and given that nearly 75 percent of total visits to ESPN Digital come from mobile devices, it comes as no wonder that the network and fans alike are celebrating the arrival of Monday Night Football.
