ESPN also decided to can in-the-booth interviews; curtailed talk of cultural trends during the game; and brought less talent and production to each game, giving the telecasts less of a circus-like atmosphere and allowing the network to focus on the game at hand.

“We have less studio shows at the event,” Skipper said. “We have less guests in the booth. If you went back to look at the games, you’d see these packages where we were trying to reflect cultural things. We’ve got less of those. Now, we just let the guys do the game. I think people are responding to that.”

ESPN also worked closely with the NFL on creating a schedule that, while not getting the best games, will feature compelling matchups.

Coincidence or not, the TV numbers for “Monday Night Football” in its 40th season have skyrocketed.

Through the first 10 games of the season, the venerable series pulled its highest ratings since it moved to ESPN, and nine of the 10 games posted a viewership increase from last year.

So far this season, “Monday Night Football” has averaged 14.573 million viewers, topping the previous high (12.955 million in 2006) by more than 12 percent. The cable number does still fall below 2005’s 15.9 million viewers, which was an all-time low in 36 years on ABC, as well as the mark for NBC’s prime-time package, which was averaging 19.452 million viewers through its first 10 games this year. Still, it’s the gains that are notable.

“ESPN stopped treating it as a marketing stunt and has focused on the product and on football,” said Mark Lazarus, the former Turner Sports head who is now president of media and marketing for Career Sports & Entertainment. “And that has been to their benefit.”

Advertisers are responding, as well. The strong ratings are helping ESPN’s ad sales efforts this season, especially since the network held inventory back for the scatter market.

“‘Monday Night Football’ is benefiting from higher ratings so that we are able to put inventory that we set aside for make-goods back into sale,” said Ed Erhardt, ESPN’s president of customer marketing and sales. “You can sell the scatter in a strong market; you can sell the unit because you have the ratings points.”

But this year’s renaissance of “Monday Night Football” is more than just ratings and ad sales. Sports-industry executives notice a bigger feel to the games, with more big games peppering ESPN’s schedule.

“I don’t care if it’s on ABC or ESPN,” Lazarus said. “The league created and intended for ‘Monday Night Football’ to be a happening. And it is.”

One of ESPN’s games this year, Brett Favre’s first game against the Packers in Week 4, drew a cable-record audience of 21.839 million viewers. Its opening telecast of the season documented Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s first game back from knee surgery and logged an average of 14.001 million viewers.

This season, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” games account for cable’s 10 biggest audiences in 2009.

Howard Katz, the NFL’s senior vice president of broadcasting and media operations, is the executive tasked with creating the broadcasters’ schedules. He said the best “Monday Night Football” games on ESPN are the ones that allow the network to advance story lines across its TV, broadband, and mobile platforms. ESPN executives have long said that they view “Monday Night Football” as much more than a three-hour window, and it’s clear that the NFL agrees.

“We look for opportunities for ESPN to tell stories,” Katz said. “They do that so well and can support ‘Monday Night Football’ with other programming.”

The difference this year is that ESPN has been telling those stories during its 90-minute pregame show and its shoulder programming on Monday afternoons rather than during the telecast. As an example, Williamson pointed to the October 26 Eagles-Redskins game, which occurred just days after the Redskins stripped coach Jim Zorn of his play-calling duties. The team had Sherman Lewis call the offensive plays even though weeks before he had been calling bingo games while in quasi-retirement.

One of ESPN’s features involved interviews with people who played bingo with Lewis. The network decided to run it during its pregame show.

“Sometimes in the past, maybe we felt compelled to force that into the game. I think you learn from that over time,” Williamson said.

All of ESPN’s executives emphasized that they’re proud of the first three years they produced “Monday Night Football” games, saying that the franchise will constantly be tweaked as it moves forward, but it’s likely to retain a football focus for the foreseeable future.

“It’s very easy to take chances with things that are under the radar,” Williamson said. “We take educated risks. We tweak things as we get feedback from fans. We’re not going to back off of that.”

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John Ourand writes for SportsBusiness Journal.