Ravens win vs. 49ers makes Monday Night Football history only surpassed by Eagles vs. Chiefs in 27 years

When the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets played in primetime in Week 1, the game between AFC East rivals pulled in a whopping 22.6 million viewers, which at the time was the most-watched Monday Night Football broadcast since the marquee game moved from ABC to ESPN in 2006, according to Jonathan Alfano of Sports Illustrated. Not bad for a game that will be remembered for an achilles tear in the 1st quarter, right? Since then, that number has been eclipsed twice, including Monday's Christmas showdown between the AFC-leading Baltimore Ravens and the NFC-leading San Francisco 49ers. In fact, Baltimore vs. San Francisco was the 2nd-most watched Monday Night Football game in the last 27 years, per a tweet from ESPN's Adam Schefter.

The Ravens-49ers – with an audience of 27,235,000 viewers – is the second most-watched Monday Night Football game in 27 years, trailing only the Eagles Chiefs in Week 11 this season. In a five-week span, Monday Night Football now has aired its two most-watched games in 27 years. pic.twitter.com/sXXAhlnkdu

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 27, 2023

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Not bad for a league that is down in scoring, missing the man who had been the face of the league for the last twenty years, and has seemingly been receiving boycott threats from various groups of disgruntled fans for the better part of the last decade. It turns out that if football is on television, no matter who is playing, fans are going to continue to show up in droves to watch. And if you get a high-profile matchup like Chiefs-Eagles or Ravens-49ers, there might be a chance that a viewership record is broken.

For the 27.2 million viewers who tuned in on Christmas night, they got to see the Baltimore Ravens head west to San Francisco to steamroll a 49ers team that had been widely considered to be the best in the league for weeks. Now it's the Ravens who have their own MVP candidate at quarterback, a lights out defense, a nice list of notable wins, and boast the best record in the National Football League all by themselves.