When ESPN announced the Peyton and Eli Manning alternative to the primary Monday night broadcast, ESPN said that it would happen 10 times per season.
It’s starting 2021 with three games in three weeks.
An email from ESPN regarding the Week Two ratings notes that Peyton and Eli will be back for Monday night’s Eagles-Cowboys game.
Beyond Week Three, there are no further announcements as to when it will happen.
ESPN’s official release pegs the Manningcast audience for Week Two at 1.9 million. With the total audience of 13.8 million viewers across all platforms (ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes), that’s 11.9 million for the ESPN and ESPN Deportes audience combined. (The ESPN Deportes audience is low, in the range of 50,000.) The Manningcast is currently getting roughly 13.7 percent of the total audience.
Everyone who watches the Manningcast doesn’t watch the main broadcast. Which undermines the main broadcast.
Maybe ESPN eventually will be able to claim credibly that Peyton and Eli have grown the overall audience. And maybe that will be the case; maybe viewers will tune in for crap games simply in order to hear from Peyton and Eli and their guests.
Regardless, the growth of the audience makes it imperative for ESPN to renegotiate their deal with the Mannings to get them to do every week. As broadcasting habits develop, the outcry will be loud once viewers turn to ESPN and find something other than Manning and Manning.
