Top 100 momentsNo. 43
Monday Night Football
ABC puts the NFL in prime time with Cosell, Meredith, and a theme song. Weeknights become football nights, and the league’s television age gets a second Sabbath.
Pete Rozelle wants a window that is not Sunday. Roone Arledge gives him Monday. Howard Cosell talks. Don Meredith drawls. The games are sometimes ordinary. The show is not. Living rooms that had given Monday to sitcoms give it to the NFL.
Prime-time football trains a country to treat the league as entertainment first, sport second. Halftime shows, graphics, and the idea that a broadcast booth can be the product all accelerate here.
The Super Bowl is the holiday. Monday Night is the weekly appointment. Without it the NFL’s grip on the American calendar is a weekend hobby.