Manningcast had a surprisingly small audience for its season finale on Monday night

NBC Sports

Only 1.419 million of the 23.1 million viewers who watched the Cardinals-Rams playoff game tuned in for Peyton and Eli Manning's alternative broadcast on ESPN2. That's a "paltry" 6.1% of the total audience, notes Mike Florio of NBC Sports' ProFootballTalk. "As previously mentioned, at some point the bean counters at Disney need to ask whether the financial investment is justified by the performance," says Florio. "Unless the Manningcast is actually resulting in more people watching the games, the alternate telecast creates presumably significant expenses (the Mannings surely don’t do anything for peanuts, nor should they) and limited additional revenue. They’re under contract for two more years. Amazon reportedly would like to pilfer Peyton and Eli for Thursday Night Football. At some point, ESPN quite possibly will say, 'Feel free.'" ALSO: Eli Manning was the Manningcast's breakout star.