For the second week in a row, there will not be Monday Night Football airing on Monday night over on ESPN. Usually, Monday night is reserved for pretty much the one NFL game ESPN gets to broadcast over its airwaves each week. While we will get to see Joe Buck and Troy Aikman call at least one more game together this year, there are two perfectly good reasons why they will not be working on Jan. 8.
The first is pretty simple. The NFL's regular season reached its conclusion on Sunday night. Thus, there are no more games left to be played this week in the final week of the NFL regular season. Yes, there will be playoff football on ESPN this upcoming weekend as part of Super Wild Card Weekend. However, the other big reason why there is no Monday Night Football this week is because of college.
Yes, for the second straight week, ESPN will be dominated by the college football game on Monday night. It happened last week because New Year's Day fell on a Monday this year. As is tradition, the national championship game as part of the College Football Playoff will be played the following Monday night at a predetermined neutral-site location. This year it will be played out over in Houston.
Either the No. 1 Michigan Wolverines vs. the No. 2 Washington Huskies will be crowned a champion.
Why there is no Monday Night Football on Jan. 8
Because ESPN is the lone broadcaster of the College Football Playoff, every playoff game will be played out on its network. Since ESPN also has exclusive broadcasting rights to Monday Night Football, we are not going to see that production air on other rival networks like CBS, FOX, NBC or even streaming on Amazon. Simply put, ESPN has all the power on Monday night in the football world.
For those who do not care about the college game, you can simply not watch TV on Monday night. There will be six playoff games coming to you live over the course of this weekend. The first two will be on Saturday, followed by three more on Sunday, followed then by one more on Monday night. Yes, Buck and Aikman will call the final game of Super Wild Card Weekend during Monday Night Football!
But for those who either love college football, or want to get more acquainted with the product, the national championship game between Michigan and Washington features two 14-0 Power Five champions looking to win their first national title on the gridiron since the 1990s. Michigan last won one in 1997, while Washington's most recent national championship came a few years earlier in 1991.
Although Buck and Aikman will not be calling a game tonight, enjoy Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit.