The ABC television network's "Monday Night Football" (MNF) series is a very successful example of the symbiotic relationship between advertising, television, and sports. Assuming that the athletic contests are packaged as slick entertainment to draw both fans and nonfans to the real programing--the commercials--a study was organized to examine each broadcast of MNF during the 1979 football-broadcast season. Each game was analyzed in terms of the number of commercials per game, the amount of time per game devoted to sponsors, the distribution of the commercials throughout the game, and the types of products advertised. From this data the following composite of the typical MNF broadcast emerged: (1) Of the three hours devoted normally to each broadcast, more than one-sixth of the broadcast time, some 29 minutes, was devoted to advertising. (2) The placement of the commercials was fairly uniform from week to week, though the practice of lead-in advertising before kickoffs was discontinued late in the season. (3) Of the 64 commercials broadcast during each game, 16 were for automotive products; 12 were related to business concerns; 7 for audiovisual and electronic equipment; 5 for beer or wine; 2 each for personal products, food services, and public service announcements; and one for home related needs. (RL)