Giants-Rams on Monday night averaged 19.4 million viewers

Published September 24, 2026 11:10 AM It’s no surprise that a game featuring the presumptive preseason Super Bowl champions and a surprisingly 1-0 team from the nation’s top media market performed well in a standalone window.The Giants-Rams Week 2 Monday night game attracted a total average audience of 19.4 million on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes.ESPN claims that Monday Night Football viewership is up 29 percent over the first two weeks of the season.But it’s difficult to do a true apples-to-apples comparison. In Week 2 of the 2025 season, the NFL staged a consecutive doubleheader on Monday night. The first game, Buccaneers at Texans, started at 7:00 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. The nightcap, Chargers at Raiders, began at 10:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.The early game averaged 17.4 million viewers. The late game averaged 9.7 million viewers. The average viewership for the two games was 13.5 million. So, yes, one game starting at the usual time on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes will outperform by a large margin a six-hour marathon with the first game on a big platform and the second game on a much smaller platform.In future years, it won’t be an issue, because the NFL has pulled the plug on the Monday night doubleheader experiment. For this year, the fact that there were two games in Week 2 a year ago makes it very hard to credibly claim that there has been a dramatic increase in viewership through two weeks.