On Monday December 27th, football during prime time wrapped up its 35th season. The show has always ranked in the top ten of TV programming reaching its zenith with the 1985 airing of the undefeated Bears against the Dolphins. The game drew a Nielson Rating of 29.6 and market share of 46%. From 1970 until the present there have been continued changes and innovations on the program. Fans witnessed the first three person commentary crew with Keith Jackson, Howard Cossell and Don Meradeth. The three in the booth format continued until last year when it was cut to two. The two are giants of the sports casting industry Al Michaels and John Madden. MNF was the first to have side line reporters. Fans have watched everyone from Hall of Famer Len Swan to the first female Lesley Visser. In between they have pioneered the "reverse angle" camera, the sky camera and, more recently, pre-game and half time entertainment involving the players. Next season Monday Night Football enters into the last year of its current contract with the National Football League, the question is will it survive after the 2005 season?

Despite the fact MNF has been ranked consistently in the top of all television shows, viewer ratings have been down seven percent over the last two seasons. ABC pays $550 million per year for the rights to broadcast the program, but it is reported the program is losing $150 million annually. This loss comes despite lucrative exclusive deals with the likes of Auto Trader.Com who signed a multi-million deal with the program to air the "Auto Trader.Com Post Game Report" where the player(s) of the game are posted onto the "horse trailer" where they remain for the duration of the season. ABC, wholly owned by the Disney Corporation, has tried everything to bring back their dwindling audience, yet their efforts seemed to have fallen upon blind eyes and deaf ears.

This year "Monday Night" opened with a Thursday night extravaganza featuring Jessica Simpson (she has her own show on ABC), Elton John (singer/song writer for a couple of Disney movies including the Lion King), Toby Keith and George Lopez (also with his own ABC show). Television is paid for by one primary source, advertising, this night was no exception. Under Coors Light banners the stars promoted the game in jerseys, at Super Bowl venues and on the home field of the New England Patriots. After the pre-game show a football game erupted. During the "show" and the first half of the game ABC ran a total of 119 commercials for everything from Coors Light (official beer of the NFL) to Play Station. The total break down for the advertising went like this; ABC self promotion 35.3%, NFL official sponsors 20.2% and all other corporate advertising 44.5%. Whether they are corporate sponsors, official sponsors of the NFL or ABC promoting ABC they all pay and at 119 ads over a span of 135 minutes it comes down to one ad every 1.13 minutes. By any stretch of the imagination this is a fairly large revenue stream, one most television executives would be more than happy to swim despite the risk of drowning. Many more would be willing to give their eye teeth for a three hour show loaded with opportunities to promote their own programming.

It is a fact the number of ads on MNF drop off during the second half as the network scrambles to stay within the 9:00 PM Pacific Time curfew. It is also true viewer ship on the east coast of the country begins to wane the closer the game gets to the midnight hour, but according to Clark Wood, V.P. of marketing for Auto Trader.Com, "People across the country, both men and women, stay with the game to tune in for the post-game report."

The "suits" at ABC have done what they can to try and prop-up the ratings by having NFL players participate in a musical shoot out where they played, sang and rapped during half time so the audience could vote on the winners. At times the competition was hokey, but it was a long site better than this season's effort.

This year they tried a couple of new wrinkles with both of them probably causing more wrinkled foreheads than drawing and sustaining viewers. During half time fans were treated to a horrible display of both acting and humor as players were "sacked" by one of their team mates who managed to con them into a situation to play the fool. This farce did not even last the entire season as it had about as much entertainment value as watching grass grow at Augusta in winter. The absolute valley of class was reached when ABC decided to use league bad boy Terrell Owens skit of questionable taste with ABC's Desperate Housewives actress Nicollette Sheridan. In the end ABC apologized for the questionable opening while at the same time garnering scrutiny from the FCC and this statement from NFL Vice President Greg Aiello, "ABC's opening was inappropriate and unsuitable for our Monday Night Football audience. While ABC may have gained attention for one of its other shows, the NFL and its fans lost." Despite the attention MNF attempts to draw to its own programming ABC is still the number four rated network behind CBS, NBC and Fox. If MNF has survived this long, attracts so much of an audience, plays so many commercials, then how on Madden's green gridiron could the show be losing so much money?

To answer this question some people might point to Madden himself. After all the guy makes roughly $43 million per year. He travels around the country in an $800,000 luxury bus equipped with three plasma screens, 24/7 internet satellite communication and granite topped counters, but this would be wrong. John Madden reportedly makes about $4.3 million for his MNF work. The bus is used courtesy of Outback Steakhouse and most of his money comes from endorsements and his contract with EA Sports. Even if one brings in the high salary of award winning sports caster Al Michaels, the total amount these two announcers make is paltry compared to the amount spent to make the actual broadcast happen.

At the end of every MNF broadcast the entire crew packs up a fleet of semis which would make the Lola Palooza caravan seem like a dog and pony show, then heads to a new location. They drive to arrive on location by Wednesday then begin placing twenty-three cameras about the stadium, shooting location shots and preparing for interviews with the opposing coaches and players. The entire staff is put up in quality hotels for the duration of their stay as a small army of production staff goes to work connecting miles of cable, satellite feeds and assorted communication networks necessary to pull off the nationally televised game. The number of cameras alone is better than twice as many as CBS and Fox use to televise their games. All of this to capture the ultimate in reality shows; live football. Not even CBS's Survivor requires the money or the man power to produce their highly rated show.

This last November Fox and CBS agreed to pay the NFL $8 billion (yes with a "B") for the six year rights to televise the NFL. The deal allows them to alter schedules so more compelling games at the end of the season could be shown in prime time. Even though this out pouring of money would bankrupt many foreign countries, the last contract with the league netted the two networks $17.2 billion dollars; the latest one will probably net them even more. Still, this is not the only revenue stream flowing through the Madison Avenue offices of the NFL. Fox, or more accurately News Corp owned by Rupert Murdock, recently bought DirectTV then negotiated a new contract with NFL Sunday Ticket. This new deal will feed the league coffers an additional $3.5 billion for the five year extension. Add into this an EA Sports deal for exclusive rights to NFL logos and uniforms for its Madden Football game of $400 million, $500 million from Gatorade to be the exclusive sports drink of the NFL, deals with Reebok to be the exclusive uniform supplier, PepsiCo (which includes Frito Lay, KFC, Taco Bell and Tropicana) and Coors and the NFL revenue flow looks more like the tsunami which struck Asia a short time ago. Add even further revenue from the NFL Network and memorabilia sales and NFL could easily be called "No Financial Losers" instead of the National Football League. As a cash cow the NFL will hardly be put to pasture early. Given this "field of greens" deals with ABC and ESPN, which have yet to be negotiated, will hardly be a pittance. They will be in the billions of dollars or the deals will not be cut.

In the early days of CBS news pioneer Edward R. Murrow worried the news division of the network was losing too much money. He called for a meeting with sole owner Fred Friendly to discuss this concern. In the course of the meeting Murrow voiced his concerned. In reply to this Friendly is supposed to have said, "Don't worry about the money; I have Jack Benny making me millions. You just produce the highest quality news show in the business and I will make sure it stays on the air." The days of sole ownership of the major networks is long over. CBS is owned by Viacom which owns MTV who was responsible for the quality half time show of the last Super Bowl. Nothing about the wardrobe incident "bares" repeating. Fox, is owned by News Corp. NBC is owned by Westinghouse and Ted Turner's former empire is owned by AOL/Time/Warner. Television has gone corporate and, like the NFL, it recognizes one word; profitability.

The survival of Monday Night Football remains in question. It seems only billions of dollars will insure a 36th year, and beyond, of programming by the "House the Mouse Built". ABC is going to have to wrestle with a couple of issues. They are going to have to decide if the Monday night platform is worth the advertising platform it provides for its own programming. To be certain ABC uses every spare moment to promote quality programming like According to Jim or The Benefactor. Everyone knows there is at least one viewer for every program in the ABC line up because Al Michaels seems to watch and enjoy every one of them. They are also going to have to decide if the legacy left by Roone Arledge is going to slip into the main stream of the league and not even attempt to be the innovator and flagship of league programming. The problems are many, yet the solutions are few. It is probably a safe guess to say the league will not settle for less than more billions, it is equally safe to assume board members and stockholders will not stand for a program hemorrhaging more money than a drunk at a Las Vegas casino.

It is my guess some kind of deal, or not, will be reached by July of this year. All of the execs will spend the next few months viewing the charts, the bean counters will add up their pintos and the league, as well as Disney will attempt to assess the "real" value of the show which has revolutionized football coverage as we know it. It would not be surprising to see Monday Night Football fall to the same considerations as football did on the original broadcasters of the old American Football League; NBC. After decades of airing AFL, then AFC games NBC, along with Westinghouse executives, decided the price was too steep and the profit margin too questionable to continue airing games. CBS became home of the AFC and Fox threw its hat around the NFC games. Even with the possibility of altering schedules to have more compelling games towards the end of the season Mickey and the rest of his crew may bow out of the football business unless the corporate executives at the National Football League decide to cut some sort of deal and toss them a bone. In the end one of the flagship reality programs on television may just sink into the sunset without a cry or a whimper, just monetary considerations.

The NFL has been referred to as the "No Fun League", but it could easily be called, "No Financial Losses" or even "No Financial Liabilities," in the end Monday Night Football may be called "Not For Long" in their airing of a grand tradition; football in prime time on the day when everyone does not look forward to their return to the work grind. This would be a loss for everyone and make Monday during the football season just another blue day for a league which runs in the black.