ESPN believes its $165 million booth of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will restore the glamour to “Monday Night Football.”
From Howard Cosell, Don Meredith and Frank Gifford to Al Michaels and John Madden, MNF has been a staple of American television culture.
So now, Howard, Dandy Don, Frank, Michaels and Madden will be succeeded by Joe and Troy.
ESPN officially announced Wednesday that Buck and Aikman have left Fox for “Monday Night Football.” Aikman, according to sources, has signed a five-year, $90 million contract, tying Tony Romo of CBS for the largest yearly NFL TV salary, while Buck has inked a five-year deal for $75 million.
The deals will take them through 2027, when ABC/ESPN will broadcast the Super Bowl. By leaving Fox, Buck and Aikman passed on calling two of the next three Super Bowls, which will be on that network.
Last year, ESPN brought some long-needed buzz to Mondays with the Manningcast, featuring Peyton and Eli Manning. The Manning brothers’ deal is a bit more complicated because it includes their ESPN+ shows, but they are at the least in the Aikman/Romo range of $18 million a year, meaning ESPN will be paying around $50 million per year for MNF announcers. The Mannings only do 10 games, in glorified Zoom broadcasts.
That all leads to one question: Why? “Monday Night Football” is about the games, right? No one watches for the announcers, correct?
Internally, ESPN believes it will sell more and greater advertising, while externally, it has finally satisfied the NFL, which has been disappointed with ESPN’s recent crews, from Joe Tessitore, Jason Witten and Booger McFarland to Steve Levy, Louis Riddick Jr. and Brian Griese.
“Monday Night Football,” for which ESPN will pay around $2.7 billion per year on its new deal, which extends for 11 years, is expected to have something of a renaissance in the next couple of seasons, because ESPN is going to add late-season flex scheduling.
While that won’t be good for fans with tickets for Sunday games, the NFL will have the option to move marquee matchups to Monday night. ESPN is calculating that the prestige of having first-name guys Joe, Troy, Peyton and Eli could lead to a better schedule from the NFL.
While ESPN deserves credit for putting together such a marquee booth — forgetting whether you think it is too much or not for announcers — it did not do right by the previous teams of Tessitore, Witten, McFarland, Levy, Griese and Riddick.
It is easy to say how bad they were, but they were not put in position to succeed. Neither trio had ever worked together or during NFL games before and were thrust into the national spotlight.
Griese has already left ESPN to become the 49ers quarterbacks coach. Levy and Riddick are the favorites to do the few extra games Buck and Aikman don’t call, according to sources, as ESPN will broadcast 22 games next season and 25 in 2023.
Buck has been calling the NFL for almost three decades, working 20 of those years with Aikman. Buck has been honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its Pete Rozelle Radio-TV Award, while Aikman has been inducted as a player.
Regardless of anyone’s opinion of how good they are as a team, they have a comfortable, big-game feel. They know what they are doing and the audience is familiar with them. The money is ridiculous, but it is harder than it looks to call games at the highest level.
For Buck, 52, this is of course largely a financial decision. He was making a little less than $10 million at Fox. But it is more than that. It is family.
Buck is married to ESPN feature reporter Michelle Beisner-Buck. A year ago, she re-signed with ESPN on a new two-year deal, according to sources. If that hadn’t happened, this wouldn’t have happened.
Buck and his wife have two 5-year-old boys. It is his second marriage and almost his second life.
He and his wife will travel together to work MNF. In the offseason, Buck will produce content for ESPN+ and might work on some features for E:60. He and his wife might even produce some together.
As for the World Series, Buck was planning on giving that up after this season, even if he had stayed at Fox — which did try to keep him with a $12 million-a-year offer. At ESPN, he is not expected to do baseball, meaning he will work less and be home more.
The favorites to replace Buck at Fox are 48-year-old Kevin Burkhardt, as the Super Bowl caller, and Joe Davis, 34, on MLB. Greg Olsen is the favorite for the top NFL analyst job, but nothing has been finalized.
Meanwhile, Michaels, 77, is at the half-yard line on a deal with Amazon Prime Video (which could still have a small NBC component) for a yearly salary that might surpass Buck’s. If Buck hadn’t signed on with ESPN, Michaels was in the on-deck circle for a three-year deal that would have allowed him to return to MNF.
Instead, it is Buck and Aikman. “Monday Night Football” feels a little bigger again. From Cosell, Dandy Don and Gifford to Michaels and Madden to … Joe and Troy.
Amazon expansion
Amazon continues to expand into sports. It has added Matt Newman to be the head of original content. He will be in charge of developing original sports docuseries, films and scripted projects. Amazon wants to build on existing shows such as “All or Nothing,” with which Amazon has focused on NFL and Premier League teams. Newman was previously co-head of movies for Amazon Studios.
Newman will report to Amazon’s vice president of Global Sports Video, Marie Donoghue, who made her name at ESPN with the acclaimed “30-for-30” series. Amazon Sports is growing into a full network. It will have live sports, including exclusive coverage of “Thursday Night Football,” next year and it will build out with more studio shows in the near future.
