The Josh Innes Show - Is The Manningcast Dead?

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

People are talking about the bad ratings for the Manningcast. Are the ratings really that bad? Will the Pat McAfee alternate broadcast get better numbers? Does anyone watch games for the announcers? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. So I find this interesting about Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. It's reading a comment that Troy Akeman had made.

I guess it may have been a couple weeks ago or maybe, it was a couple days ago. He talked about why he and Joe Buck were. hired by ESPN. And he believes it was because after they went through a bunch of dudes that just weren't that good on Monday night football, Steve Levy, Jason Witt and Joe Tessitore, Brian Greasy, Booger McFarland, all these guys. They felt, and I think this is kind of a widely understood or widely accepted thought, is that Joe Buck and Troy Aitman were brought in to kind of legitimize Monday night football with two real pros. You know, you take the Foxxie.

number one team. You put them on Monday night football. You're no longer fucking around with a clown like Joe Tessitore or Booger McFarland or these guys. Now you've brought in the big guns. You've brought in like the most, you know, one of the top two or three most legitimate broadcasts in the NFL. And that helped kind of fix the relationship between ESPN and the NFL. And obviously they're spending a lot of money for the NFL. The NFL was probably unhappy that they were putting on, you know, a bunch of dudes that nobody gave a shit about on TV that were, just kind of doofs, and that's why they brought Joe Buck and Troy Aikmanette. Hold on.

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Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on espresso.com. Advertising on Spotify puts your brand in the moments where Gen Z fandom takes shape. They're 35% of our audience and spend two hours building rituals and shaping culture with every stream. Download the Culture Next Report to discover trends and insights that will inspire your next campaign. So back to this story. The NFL took notice and ESPN began getting better games. Now the two entities are closer than ever. Earlier this year, ESPN acquired NFL network from the league and in return

gave the NFL a 10% equity stake in the network. Aikman is under no illusions that the acquisition of him and Buck had everything to do with the newly cozy relationship between ESPN and the NFL. However, he will acknowledge that it played a role during a recent interview with sports media reporting. or Richard Deich, Aikman discussed how ESPN's hiring of him and Buck help mend the network's relationship with the NFL. I came over in 2022 in large part to kind of help mend the relationship with ESPN and the NFL. I feel like the reason that I was brought over, I fulfilled whatever obligations they were expecting from me, so much so much so that the league now owns 10% of the network. So I would say the fence has been mended.

So basically Joe Buck is saying or Troy Aitman is saying that he and Joe Buck are the reason why, or part of the reason why the NFL and ESPN are now a, or are tighter than they were is because of this. Apparently Joe Buck just signed a new $100 million plus deal. I'm blown away when these announcers are getting paid this way. I know we have this discussion pretty frequently on here. I'm blown away by the idea that anyone thinks that people are tuning into a football game because of the announcers. This isn't 1970. This isn't Howard Cocell. People aren't throwing shit at their TV because Howard Cocell is on TV. This is not that. This is not that era. I have never watched a football game because Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are calling it. I'm either going to watch it because it's a good game or I'm not. And generally speaking, if Joe Buck and Troy Akeman are calling it, I'm not.

And generally speaking, if Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are calling it, it should be a good game because all the years they were on Fox, they were usually calling that game that was the afternoon window and usually the best game. You were getting maybe a Tom Brady game. You were getting the Saints when they were good. You were getting the 49ers when they were good. You were getting good fucking matchups. That's why they called them. And I say this respectfully as someone who's still sort of kind of maybe in the media. I don't think people are too in fact I know this especially in this era because I don't think people feel as much of a bond with the announcers as they used to like I think there are a couple of people that go viral as announcers that kind of have a fan base of their own but they're also not people that people are tuning into here like like Kevin Harlan Kevin Harlan's got a viral fan base and I think Kevin Harlan kind of plays to that right so I think when you get Harlan he'll like find an excuse to do something kind of way.

lackey, like if there's like a streaker on the field or a squirrel that runs on the field or a cat that runs on the field. Like when something kind of out of the ordinary happens, Kevin Harlan's able to always turn that into a viral type of moment. And Kevin Harlan's fucking fantastic at it. And I've always been a Kevin Harlan guy. For my entire life, I've been a Kevin Harlan guy. But there are very few people who are more than just wallpaper calling these games.

And I think that's part of the intention. I don't think these networks want people who are bigger than the game, people that are stars, because if people are stars, then you have to pay them like they are stars. They're paying Joe Buck and Troy Aikman like they are stars. Joe Buck is getting a $100 million deal. I would still watch Monday Night Football if Joe Tessator were calling it. Now, it was a little bit tougher because I hate Tessitore. But Tessitore was not going to run people off if it's a good close game.

If it's a blowout, people aren't going to watch it either way. If it's a shitty matchup, people aren't going to watch it either way. I don't believe that people are tuning in to watch Monday night football because, oh, Joe Buck's on the call. Boy, it must be a big fucking deal. Like, I don't believe that because I don't think people look at shit that way anymore. You know, go back to when, and broadcasters were fucking grown-ass men, and it would be like a Dick Enberg or somebody like that.

Like, that would feel like you're watching something big. I don't feel that way about anybody. You know, when Keith Jackson was calling a major college football game, when Keith Jackson's calling the National Championship, USC versus Texas, that felt like a big fucking thing. You knew that Keith Jackson being there meant this is some big shit. I'd argue Vern Lundquist calling the SEC CBS game. That felt like a big fucking thing.

These are like old school legitimate pro dudes. When Brad Nestler is calling whatever game poor CBS gets, boy, you look at CBS. Like, you go from calling like, hey, it's LSU Alabama, right, to like, hey, it's Rutgers in Iowa and you're like, shit, what did I do? You know? But like, nobody's tuning in for the announcers anymore.

Tell me announcers that people, like, tune in for whether they're analysts. Like, I think Romo had that vibe for about five minutes. For about five minutes, it was kind of like, oh my God, we got to see what Romo is going to say next. Romo Domus, let's see what the big prediction is with Romo this time. And then you realize it was all just a fucking farce. And he was just saying, they may run or they may pass here, Jimmy.

And then, of course, they're going to run. they're going to fucking pass, Jimmy. And they did. And it was like, oh, my God, Rome O'Domas. But that's kind of the new era of the world. And you can get people everywhere. So it's not like, you know, you're holding people hostage and like there's a handful of announcers.

And, you know, and that's the only thing you have. Like, there's just so many things. Dude, on Monday Night Football, you're paying Joe Buck $100 million. And if I have the option of watching the play-by-play or watching the Manning cast, I watch the Manning cast every week. Now, obviously, that's not what everybody does.

I wonder what the Manning cast ratings are. Let's see. Manning cast ratings. And people will judge them and they'll go, oh boy, the Manningcast numbers are down, whatever. But remember, that's just kind of a nice add-on to whatever they've got. Like, the alternative would be on ESPN2, you'd put on something that no one's going to watch.

You know, so those are your options. You can either put on a show that accentuates or kind of add some color to the broadcast that people are already watching, and at least you have a chance to get those eyeballs, or you put on Ukrainian table tennis that no one's going to watch, or a women's basketball game that no one's going to watch. You cannibalize yourself in that part, so it's dumb. So let's see here.

And I think when they report this, they look at the matchup and they look at the two broadcast, the Manning cast and the over-the-air broadcast. Let's see. So the Manningcast opening broadcast pulled in 705,000 views. for the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs matchup. A 2026 week one viewership with 705,000 viewers out of 23.2 million total. That's roughly 3% of the overall audience. In 2021, the peak average, they had a high of about 2 million with about a 1.6 million average.

But that's just, that makes sense. Because the Manning cast is not a game broadcast. It's like a television show. And no television show maintains like the peak audience. that it had. Right? So, like, if you're in, like, think about any TV show you like.

Like, Gray's Anatomy that's still on TV. Somehow, I was talking with my buddy about this the other day, that Gray's Anatomy is still on TV and it's fucking wild. Like, at its apex, Gray's Anatomy was probably, you know, a top five show, top 10 type show. It's still on, and it ain't a top 10 show anymore. But it's still viable and it still makes money for them.

The Manning cast takes a hit with Week 1 TV radio. It's only week two of the NFL, but the ESPN may have to think long. Let's read this story about this. Because I like having the option for the Manning cast. Again, what could they put on in that spot that people would prefer or that they would watch? The NFL is the biggest entity. 23 million people are watching the Chiefs play football. Whatever you put on ESPN2 is going to have no audience.

So they're probably looking at it like, all right, it's 700,000 people. Like, let's see what's on there whenever there's no Manning cast. Let's see, this is, now it gets interesting. What are the ESPN2 ratings when there is no Manning cast? Let's see. When there is no manning cast during Monday night football, ESPN2 typically reverts to regular network programming, standard sports reruns, talk shows, blah, blah, blah. Because ESPN2 does not air live alternative telecast every single Monday night, Standard non-game or non-manning cast ratings on ESPN2 for those specific Monday timeframes

depend entirely on what schedule, blah, blah, blah, which generally averages a fraction of a live-event viewers, often ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 viewers depending on the lead end. However, ESPN has planned for alternate coverage such as a proposed Pat McAfee-led alternate presentation on ESPN2, specifically for weeks when Peyton and Eli are off, meaning blah, blah, blah. Well, give me like a rating. Okay. Like people are shitting on this. Like it's, they say it's a bit, like I'm reading this story.

It's that they were abysmal ratings at roughly 3% of Monday Night Football Watchers. They're not putting that on there because they think it's going to come close to what the ratings are for the actual broadcast. They're doing this because everybody that's watching that that's higher than what it would be if it were just reruns of first take. That's beneficial to them. Like you got to understand this shit, man. That's why you put that on there. You don't put that on there. And I would imagine that Eli and Peyton have some sort of bigger deal with ESPN or like their production company has some sort of deal with ESPN.

So it's all, I bet they're not getting paid for that per se. I would imagine their deal includes a bunch of other shit and that's just kind of part of the deal. Right. Or maybe they just own that broadcast or whatever. Like there's different elements of it. But like, like people are talking about this like seven or 800,000 people watching Peyton and Eli Manning talking about football is a bad. number. Like, let's look at this. Let's see, Monday night cable ratings. Let's see here. What's the latest? Let me, what's the latest Monday night we can look at? Let's see here.

Show me the Monday night ratings here. This is like, I know we're digging into the weeds here, but like I get annoyed when I see people bitching and saying, oh, look, their ratings are terrible. Like, understand the situation. The situation matters, man. Let's see, scripted network shows. No, I want cable ratings. So I need to find the cable ratings. Monday night cable TV ratings. That's all I need to find.

Let's see, Nielsen Top 10. I need to see Monday night TV ratings, okay? Because if you look at some of these network shows, I would imagine pushing a million people's a pretty solid number in the cable world. And again, people are looking at this like, it's like do or die or like, you, They must have a billion people watching this. They don't. They're not like, would they like to have as many eyeballs as they can?

Would they like to have 2 million people if they could? Sure. But, you know, like last night's game, friends, that game was never interesting. The quarterback got hurt in the first fucking two plays of the game. It was never an interesting game. Let's see. U.S. television show ratings. Show me.

I need Monday night action here. I need to see what's going on on Monday night TV ratings. I mean, just looking at this, that's the scripted shows. Let's see. I'm looking at some of this shit. I'd like to see some more details, please. This is all I'd like to see. Let's see.

Monday. Show me a Monday. Monday, Friday TV ratings. Let's see. Monday TV ratings. All right, let's see here. When is this from? From September 12th.

So was there a Monday night game on that September 12th? Maybe. Let's see here. Well, baseball. Let's see. Baseball had 1.89 million viewers on NBC that Monday. Again, so think about it this way. 1.89 million people are watching a Major League Baseball game. Now, that's streaming, right? Or I believe that, is that, let's see.

No, that was on real NBC. So, 1.89 million people watched a baseball game on NBC. Okay, let's see, 1.5 million people watched beat Shazam. So when you look at it that way, on network television 1.5 million people are watching CBS on Monday night at 8 o'clock. All-American, which is somehow still on TV,

had 390,000 people watching it. Baseball had 1.89 million. Now, Jeopardy Masters had 3 million people watching, which is pretty fucking wild. But then in the 9 o'clock, Beat Shazam has 1.4 million. Jeopardy's got 2.8. my point or 2.1. My point being in this, and I'm not trying to bog you down with numbers here,

but I'm going to bog you down with numbers because I find this shit interesting. Whenever you look at a 700,000 people watching that, the reality is there may be 100,000 people watching ESPN2, if not for that. Now, in theory, those people could just be back over on ESPN watching the game. You could think that. But if you can combine the two there and look at the number you're going to get from the broadcast, and the number you're going to get from the Manning cast, that helps the number. Everybody they watch, anybody that watches that game or the number they get,

the number you get over what it would be if it was a rerun of first take is a victory. And then you have to look at the cost. What cost does ESPN have to run this? Like, I'd like to know. Like, I don't know if the Mannings are each making money from that broadcast or not. I think they have a bigger deal with their production companies and shit.

So the point being in all of this is you say, oh my God, only 700,000 people are watching this? It's only week two, blah, blah, blah. Eli and Peytony conducted their first Manning cast episode of the 2026 season. Also remember, the game was a mauling, if I recall correctly. Let's see. For the actual ratings, the Atlantic said only 705,000 of ESPN's 23.2 million viewers tuned in for the Manning cast.

The pressure will be on the brothers this season since Pat McAfee will get an alternate Monday night football broadcast during the weeks. there is no way in fucking hell whatever Pat McAfee puts on an alternate will have more viewers than the Manning cast will That is my prediction There may be a curiosity part of it And remember that was a shitty football game too The shit the game being good also matters

So we'll see I doubt that whatever Pat McAfee does Which is just going to be he and his dudes sitting around saying Don and doing yinser shit for four hours. Like I doubt that's going to be something. Well, let's see what the alternate. Okay, well, let's look at this. Let's see, national championship.

Let's see what number of the national championship alternate broadcast ratings. Let's see what McAfee gets on those. Let's see. The field pass with Pat McAfee. had 1.2 million viewers on ESPN2. So it's not like a gigantic difference between like, you know, 800,000, 900,000, and 1.2. And that's just the average. I don't know what its high watermark was versus not, you know.

And remember, a couple years ago, there was 2.4 million viewers watching Magpie. I do think there's an advantage McAfee has in the college world because he's so associated with game day and everything else. Like, to me, this will be where you see what kind of draw McAfee actually is. I think you'll get an idea and stuff like that where it's not just his daily show and it's not being thrown on an established show like game day. You see what kind of draws somebody is. And that's a national championship game too. So there's just extra eyeballs on that. There's not extra eyeballs on a Monday night game.

It's a regular season Monday night game. A national championship game is a different animal because it's the biggest game there is. It's the only game there is. It's a championship. So we'll see. I don't doubt that Mac if he can pull in people. But and who knows, maybe in the future there won't be a Manning cast, it'll just be Pat McAfee, whatever. But like the idea that seven or 800,000 people watching an alternate broadcast is bad for ESPN in some way, people don't look at this shit fourth dimensionally.

I have no idea what's in the contract. They have no idea if the Mannings are getting paid to do that particular show or if it's part of a bigger deal. They have no idea what the cost to do that show is, which there's cost in it. I'm sure, but for the most part, two dudes sitting in their fucking house almost. You know, like, what is the cost versus what you make? What do they sell? Do they sell that as a bigger package with the NFL gamers and its own entity? There's a lot of business parts of that that you have to look at that's not just,

oh, 700,000. Like, to give you an example, if you want to look at a radio example of things, because that's the world I'm in, and they're not all too different. Like, if you look at, like, you look at the Houston radio. ratings. Okay? Now, I don't have the particular demos. All I have is 6 plus, which is not necessarily the most fair way to look at this, but that's the number I'm going to use. I'm going to use 6 plus here. So you look at KTRH, big news talk radio station KTRH, right? It is currently 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8th in the market in 6 plus, which is not bad actually for a news talk station in that way. It's, you know, because it's a lot of,

It's talk shows. It's not news. Whatever. But it's eighth. It's behind Sunny and Eagle. Did I tell you about the time that I tried to get a job at the Eagle? I think I did. But they had an opening for a person.

And I'm going to tell you, the person that was running that thing, I don't know that that son of a bitch ever responded to my emails. Now, obviously, they don't need me because they're basically a jukebox and they're a classic rock jukebox and they have ratings and all that. shit, so more power to them. But like, I'm out there. I'm out of a job. I know Houston. I know the classic rock world because I've worked at one of the biggest classic rock stations in the country, a legendary station. I've worked at three classic rock stations. So I have an idea of how it all works, you know, and I'm like, I could be a huge asset. I've got sponsors saying they're going to

come over with me all this shit. Never heard anything from the PD. You want to know how wild the world is. So here's how this thing worked out. I don't know if I ever told you guys. I'm sure I told you this. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. So I, I, I, I was trying to get this job in Houston. So I started looking through who the big bosses were there. And if there's anybody that knew those people that I knew that would say something good for me. So I discovered that the general manager of the station or whoever, the big boss was, was a woman that someone I knew worked for in San Antonio at one point.

That somebody was a guy named Tony Travado. Tony Travado is the guy that runs Detroit. and he's also one of the region presidents or region captains or whatever they call them at IHeart. So I sent him an email and I said, hey, I know that you worked for this person in San Antonio and I know that I know you from the five minutes I spent in Detroit and I know that Jilly worked for you for a little bit.

Would you be willing to reach out to this person that you know on my behalf and say that I'd be great to work for their station? And he's like, yeah, sure, I'll do that for you. And then I just randomly decided. I responded to him and said, hey, do you guys happen to have anything in the rock world at Iheart, assuming I'd get nothing? But five minutes later, I think we do. What do you need to make? I'm like, well, not much. I'm out of a job. And then that started a process that lasted five months or whatever it was until I finally ended up in Detroit.

But that's funny how that works. But all that, because I was trying to get this job at the Eagle to do more. and I don't imagine they even talk much in the morning there, and they're number two in the market six plus. Classic Rock can do that in some towns, and that is one of them. But I use this as the example. So you've got a station like KTRH, and I bet if you looked at Michael Barry's ratings,

they're probably not spectacular compared to what like a Rush Limbaugh was getting at one time, and I don't know what he is in the morning and the afternoon, but if the station's an eighth, I would imagine Michael probably hovers around that universe in morning drive, you know, something like that, maybe a little higher, a little lower, maybe in the afternoon, a little higher, a little lower. And they might say, oh, my God, the ratings have plummeted for KTRH. Yeah, but what does Michael Berry bring in?

And the answer is he's one of the biggest revenue-generating people in all of IHeart media. The guy brings in tens of, like over $10 million a year from what I understand, just from Michael Barry, brings in $10 million a year. It might be higher at this point. I don't want to shortchange him, but the number I've heard is at least that. So don't get caught up in, oh my God, only 800,000 people are watching the Manning cast. Well, again, that's 800,000 people that wouldn't be watching it otherwise.

But in theory, maybe they'd be watching the game broadcast. That's possible. But point being in all of this is it's just easy to say, oh, my God, the ratings have plummeted. And it's easy to do that because you can write a quick little story about how nobody watches the Manning cast. But then you don't know all the inner workings of that. the contract. You have no idea what their deal is. You have no idea what they're getting paid to do that. You have no idea what the network's cost is. You have no idea how much money they're making off of that broadcast. You have no clue. And again, the alternative is they would put on a rerun

of Sports Center that maybe one-tenth of the Manning audience would be watching. So, there. I wonder how the sports station is doing. Like, they haven't had a full month of ratings for the sports station moving to FM yet. I don't think. I think what's going to end up happening is next month will give us a better idea how sports is doing on FM in Houston. So we'll have to see. But I'm curious to see how that's doing. It's weird because they've got ratings for 957 before it flipped to sports.

And then like they didn't do like Kilt A.M. all those. Like none of those have a rating for the month of August. It's interesting. I'll be curious to see what it did, comparatively speaking, how it went from the spot. The spot was doing well, at least ratings-wise. I am intrigued. I don't know why. These are the things that interest me. Oh, look, there's Baton Rouge radio ratings. How about that? Anyway, I don't know. Oh, I forgot our stations. Don't even.

I say our stations. Like, I work for Cumulus. I don't, but my dad. I was thinking about my dad on that one. Boy, WJBO's take. Anyway, none of this matters. Josh, do not go down the wormhole of looking at Baton Rouge radio ratings. Nobody gives a shit. So, yeah, I would be interested to see what McAfee does. Because I think McAfee's a draw. He's obviously a draw.

It's just how big of a draw. Like you wonder how, like, what kind of pull he actually legitimately has. Like how many people are tuning in for Pat McAfee? Like he clearly has an audience. Like what are his, okay, well, maybe this will give us an idea. Pat McAfee show ESPN viewership. So not online, but just like the ESPN viewership. Let's see.

Pat McAfee's primetime ESPN. I don't want to see that. I want to see Pat McAfee's show on ESPN. Let's see. Okay, this site's going to get my computer cable. answer. Anyway, point being is, you know, I'd like to see, you know, what he actually gets when he's on. Well, this is from January 12th, 2026. Let's see. The Pat McAfee show draws most watched year, most watched year on ESPN. Let's see, weekday show grew viewership 8% across linear TV. So this is

early this year. Again, this is a fucking story that I have to have pop up blockers and shit. What are we doing here, people? I also think kind of back to our original point about there's too many there's over exposure. I do think there's a such thing as over exposure. And I think you've seen it now with Jason Kelsey. Because Kelsey wasn't always as disliked isn't the right word. I think there are a lot of people who are annoyed by Kelsey. But I don't think he's universally hated.

I think McAfee is far more hated than Travis or Jason Kelsey. but as you get exposed more and now you're on Monday night countdown, people do get turned off by this shit. Multiple ESPN Studios shows surge to record first quarter. This is a PR piece from ESPN, so take that. Pat McAfee show average 520,000 viewers on linear and digital for its best quarter one ever following record audience averages of 575K in January, and 530K in February and 455K in March.

Cool. Rock on. But like if you were to look at that, right, if that's what we're going to do, you'd say, well, they lost 120,000 viewers from January to March. They're dying. Well, you've got to look at it from that March to the previous March, not from January to whatever.

Again, I know I'm getting in the weeds here. But for whatever reason, this is the kind of shit I enjoy. Enjoy numbers talk. Who has higher ratings? Pat McAfee or Colin Cowherd. I would imagine McAfee. Cowherd has closed the gap significantly. Huh.

Yeah, really? So their total viewership is somewhere between... What am I? I gotta get it. This is... I do not give a shit. I do give a shit. I know you guys don't give a shit.

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