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With its $165 million booth of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, ESPN believes it is restoring the glamor to “Monday Night Football.”
From Howard Cosell and Don Meredith to Al Michaels and John Madden, MNF has been a staple of American television culture.
So now, Howard, Dandy Don, Michaels and Madden are joined by Joe and Troy.
On Wednesday, ESPN officially announced that Buck and Aikman have left Fox for “Monday Night Football.” Aikman, according to sources, has signed a five-year, $90 million contract, tying CBS’ Tony Romo for the largest yearly NFL TV salary, while Buck has inked a five-year deal for $75 million.
These deals will take them through 2027, when ABC/ESPN will have the Super Bowl. By leaving Fox, Buck and Aikman passed on calling two of the next three Super Bowls.
Last year, ESPN brought some long-needed buzz to Mondays with the Manningcast, featuring Peyton and Eli. Their 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 on MNF announcers. The Mannings only do 10 glorified Zoom games.
This all leads to the question of: Why? It 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 crews from Joe Tessitore, Jason Witten and Booger McFarland to Steve Levy, Louis Riddick Jr. and Brian Griese.
“Monday Night Football,” which ESPN will pay around $2.7 billion per year for on its new deal that 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 this 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, like Joe, Troy, Peyton and Eli, could lead to a better schedule from the NFL.
While ESPN deserves credit — forgetting if you think it is too much or not for announcers — for putting together such a marquee booth, 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 as neither trio had ever worked together or on the NFL before and were thrust into the national spotlight.
Griese has already left ESPN to become the 49ers quarterback’s coach. Levy and Riddick are the favorites to do the few extra games that Buck and Aikman don’t call, according to sources, as ESPN will have 22 games next season and 25 in 2023.
Buck has been calling the NFL for almost three decades, with 20 of those years with Aikman. Buck is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as an announcer, while Aikman is there as a player.
Everyone can have an opinion of how good they are, but they have a comfortable, big-game feel. They know what they are doing. The audience is familiar with them. And while, yes, the money is ridiculous, it is harder than it looks to call games at the highest level.
For Buck, 52, this is of course largely a financial decision, as 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, Beisner-Buck re-signed with a new year deal with ESPN, according to sources. If that doesn’t happen, this doesn’t happen.
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. Fox did try to keep Buck with a $12 million-a-year offer. At ESPN, he is not expected to do baseball, meaning he will work less and be home for his family more.
The favorites to replace Buck at Fox is 48-year-old Kevin Burkhardt, as the Super Bowl caller, and Joe Davis, 34, on MLB. Greg Olsen is the favorite for the NFL analyst job, but nothing is just completed on any front just yet.
Al Michaels, 77, is at the half-yard line with Amazon that could still have a small NBC component, and 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 Michaels to return to MNF.
Instead, it is Buck and Aikman. “Monday Night Football” feels a little bigger again. From Cosell and Dandy Don to Michaels and Madden to … Joe and Troy.
Amazon expansion
Amazon Sports continues to expand. It has added Matt Newman to be the head of original content. He will be in charge of developing original sports docuseries, flims and scripted projects. Amazon wants to build on existing shows like “All or Nothing,” which Amazon has done on NFL and Premier League teams. Newman was previously co-head of Amazon Studios.
Newman will report into Amazon’s vice president of Global Sports, Marie Donahue, who made her name at ESPN with the acclaimed “30-for-30” series. Amazon Sports is growing into a full network, as it has live sports, including exclusive coverage of “Thursday Night Football” next year and it will build out with more studio shows in the near future.
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