If you missed the second half of this week’s ESPN Monday night football double headed, you weren’t the only one.

The game, in which the Arizona Cardinals host the Los Angeles Chargers exclusively on the streaming platform ESPN+, averaged fewer than 2 million viewers. He said that makes it the least-watched NFL game since 2008 Sports business magazine And Pro football talk.

PFT reported an audience of approximately 1.8 million average viewers SBJ indicated was “relatively accurate.” Anyway, we’re talking about MLB viewership for the almighty NFL.

SBJ notes that there have been several NFL games in recent years for which no official crowd was reported, including ESPN+’s Toy Story game last year and Yahoo’s exclusive Bills-Jaguars game in 2015.

ESPN is booked for one streaming-exclusive game on ESPN+ each season as part of its broadcast contract with the NFL. After years of using these rights to broadcast a game abroad, the world leader announced in May that it would switch to a primetime window as part of one of its three MNF doubleheaders every season.

You have to imagine they wouldn’t have put the ESPN+ exclusive here if they knew it would bring in record-low numbers. As Awful Announcing noted last week, ESPN’s frustration could be focused in a few places. One, in the NFL because he kept some European games to himself on NFL Network. Two, to the schedulers for giving them a measly Chargers-Cardinals matchup in this slot (in what ended up being a close game, that is). Three, at Peacock and Netflix for going over the top to buy better a la carte, exclusive streaming games on the first Friday of the season and Christmas Day respectively.

While ESPN considered the change to be its own decision, someone else may have lined them up.

Still, ESPN+ had nearly 25 million subscribers in May. Even assuming some of them will only use it for local NHL games or UFC pay-per-views, the MNF The audience is less than 8 percent of the subscriber base. And unlike some exclusive events, NFL games are available over-the-air in local markets. So ESPN+ can’t even take solace in getting some new subtitles in LA and Phoenix.

Despite cleverly negotiating some goodies for ESPN+ in its NFL deal three years ago MNF the viewership numbers seem to indicate that the Worldwide Leader is struggling to capitalize on this for its subscription service.

(Sports Business Journal, Pro Football Talk)