Last night was bittersweet - I got to see the Patriots show the Jets why they are two-time Super Bowl champs, but at the same time, it was the last Monday Night Football game on ABC. Beginning in September 2006, Monday Night Football will move to its new home on ESPN. ESPN will pay $1.1 billion per year for Monday night rights in an eight-year deal.
ABC started Monday Night Football on September 21, 1970. After an impressive 36 seasons, it is the longest running primetime sports series in television history. Back in the day, it was a bold step to take for ABC. At that time, football in America fit into a three-day weekend. Friday night was for high school games; Saturday belonged to college football; the NFL played on Sunday. The NFL offered it to CBS and NBC who both turned it down. ABC jumped on it and 555 games later, the rest is football history.
Monday Night Football brought familiar faces to our homes every week - Howard Cosell, Dandy Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, and Keith Jackson. Al Michaels took over the play-by-play duties in 1986, and will follow the series to ESPN next season, along with Joe Theismann, who gave us one of the more dramatic moments in MNF history. I remember watching the game in the 1985 season when Theismann's leg was literally broken in two during a sack. That is still one of the freakiest things I've ever seen on TV to this day.
I did some research and was surprised to find that the Jets have the distinction of playing in both the first and last Monday Night Football games on ABC. They lost both games - the first to the Browns, and the last to the Patriots - but it is a distinction nonetheless.
I guess I have nine months to call Insight Communications and get the cable moved from the living room to my bedroom so I can keep up my Monday Night Football tradition of watching the game from bed. It's a good thing I have till September - it will probably take that long for Insight to come out here.
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