Why are there two Monday Night Football games this week?

Week 3 of the NFL has almost concluded, but there’s still not one, but two games left to play for Monday Night Football. The Jacksonville Jaguars will play the Bills in Buffalo to start the evening with a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. Just 45 minutes later at 8:15 p.m. ET, the Cincinnati Bengals host the Washington Commanders in the second of the Monday night doubleheader.

Why are there two Monday Night Football games tonight?

Tonight’s MNF doubleheader is the first of four in the 2024-25 NFL season. MNF has been a staple of the NFL since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. At that time, it was only ABC which had the rights to televise the Monday game and there was only one MNF game per week while NBC and CBS broadcast the Sunday games.

From 1987 until 2006, ESPN took over the rights for Sunday Night Football. In 2006, ESPN took over the rights for Monday Night Football in an eight-year deal and NBC took over Sunday Night Football. During those years, ESPN would broadcast 17 MNF games at 8:30 p.m. ET. and the very first MNF doubleheader was broadcast on September 11, 2006. The idea was to have one game on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, so in the first, the Washington Redskins hosted the Minnesota Vikings and the Oakland Raiders played the San Diego Chargers.

In 2021, ESPN, the Walt Disney Company, and the NFL signed a 10-year deal that would start in September 2023 and would increase MNF games from 17 to 23. So it’s only within the last year that ESPN has begun to broadcast MNF games on an overlapping time schedule. In 2023, there were three MNF doubleheaders including two games in December which kicked off at the same time.

2024 NFL Monday Night Football doubleheaders