 The league predated the vast expansion of cable television and sports networks spearheaded by the birth of ESPN in 1979, which severely limited the options the WFL had to televise.At the time, the AFL–NFL merger, coupled with the launch of "Monday Night Football", had spread the NFL broadcast rights over all three of the Big Three television networks.The NFL, in a 1973 memo, noted that if the NFL had left one of the Big Three networks without NFL rights, it would have left an opening for the WFL.