Starting in 2006, the football tradition known as Monday Night Football will move to ESPN after 35 seasons on ABC.  ESPN, ABC's sister station, will pay $1.1 billion to the NFL over the next eight years.  Meanwhile, NBC brought the rights to Sunday Night Football, which will keep a feature football game on broadcast television and brings football back to NBC.

<sarcasm> This was brilliant.  After all, it worked for the NBA, right? </sarcasm>

Personally I am sick of ESPN, and I'm sure others are as well.  While it may get a decent booster at first, I bet the ratings after a year or two won't be any better than Sunday Night Football's ratings are now.  I understand ABC was losing serious money on the game every year, but it could have been saved.  I guess nobody's ever heard of signing a lower contract.  I'd rather have the show moved to CBS or NBC on Monday nights rather than to cable.

So, will Theisman, McGwire, and Patrick move to NBC, or be out of a job? (I'm sure Michaels and Madden will move to ESPN).  My guess is they'll be out of a job.  It's unfortunate, because I find them entertaining.  NBC shouldn't be TOO bad, or at least they can't do a worse job than CBS is doing right now.  It should be interesting to see if they keep the tried and true method they had before they gave up their NFL rights to CBS.  And I'm sure Dick Enberg has already gotten the phone call and is ready to go into the booth.