Swan song: After its 36-year run, ABC handing off MNF

From its inception, ABC's Monday Night Football was a risky experiment that defied American sports tradition. From Howard Cosell's pontification to Don Meredith's down-home songs to Dennis Miller's arcane analogies, it dominated TV viewing in homes and bars across the nation.

The broadcast was a hodgepodge of personalities and indelible images, defining moments and follies, eye-popping on-the-field performances and the kind of impromptu silliness that only sheer boredom can create.

In short, it was exactly what ABC Sports boss Roone Arledge hoped it would be.

It was theater.

Television sports reaches the end of one era and the beginning of another Monday night when ABC signs off on its prime-time weeknight coverage of the NFL for the final time and hands off to sister network ESPN.

The 555th Monday night game on the network is itself of little consequence: The dismal New York Jets play the New England Patriots, who already are playoff bound but have no chance to improve their position.

The series switches networks next season, when ESPN begins paying $1.1 billion per year for Monday night rights in an eight-year deal.

"Monday Night Football is the premier property in sports television," ESPN president George Bodenheimer said. "All the players get up for it. All the teams watch. It's a national showcase. To be able to transition it to ESPN is an honor."

There was no ESPN when ABC began its MNF run on Sept. 21, 1970, with the Jets playing at Cleveland. It was the beginning of 36 seasons of one of television's most valuable franchises, a compelling three hours that became the longest running prime-time sports series in TV history.

Municipal Stadium was jammed with 85,703 fans that first night as ABC began a broadcasting odyssey with Keith Jackson doing play-by-play and ex-quarterback Meredith sharing analysis and wisecracks with Cosell. The three-man booth was new territory for sports television. But then, so was this whole MNF adventure, the invention of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and Arledge.

It was a bold step because, for the longest time, football in America fit neatly into a three-day weekend. Friday night was reserved for high school games. Saturday belonged to college football. The NFL played on Sunday.

Rozelle wasn't about to lock the NFL into that pattern. The league had experimented with occasional weeknight games and the commissioner thought it was a perfect place to grow his product. Similarly, Arledge believed sports was the perfect product for television.