Troy Aikman Is Leaving FOX for ESPN to Go Make Tony Romo Money

[TexasTowelie]

There were marginally bigger things happening in the world last night, so you’d be forgiven for missing the news—first reported by the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand—that Troy Aikman is expected to leave FOX, his broadcast home since retiring from the Cowboys in 2000, for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Per Marchand, the deal will run through the 2027 Super Bowl at an annual salary that “is expected to approach or exceed the neighborhood of Tony Romo’s $17.5 million per year contract with CBS.”

Which is a hefty bag of cash for a color commentator—and, yet, I get it.

Monday Night Football’s influence has withered over the last decade. Rights packages have plenty to do with that: slick as NBC’s Sunday Night Football presentation may be, its surge to supremacy is largely due to the games it airs. Rarely does the week’s marquee matchup fall on a Monday anymore, and no broadcaster, not even one as iconic as Aikman, can fix that.

But just as the football has been watered down, so, too, has Monday Night Football’s broadcast quality. Ever since Al Michaels fled to Sunday nights, ESPN hasn’t fielded a broadcast team on par with Aikman and Joe Buck or Michaels and Cris Collinsworth: one that provides a signature aesthetic, beckoning casual fans to plop down on the couch and spend a few hours with them watching the game. The closest they’ve come was this season’s Manningcast on ESPN2. The entire conceit of the fantastic (and fantastically fun) reimagining of a football broadcast was Peyton and Eli Manning and various guests drowning out the suits ESPN pays to call the action on the main channel.

So, yeah, there’s plenty of room for improvement, and the insightful Aikman will surely provide it. Reasonable minds can differ on whether he’s the very best football analyst working the pro game or merely in the upper echelon. What is beyond reproach is his cachet. He is recognizable, even revered.

Read more: https://www.dmagazine.com/sports/2022/02/troy-aikman-is-leaving-fox-for-espn-to-go-make-tony-romo-money/

[brush]

1. Good for him. I read recently on ESPN an article/listing...

of how much various sportscasters make and it's the former quarter backs who make the most. And Romo is up there at 17M give or take, but the top guy is Terry Bradshaw at 25M...can you wrap your head around that?

Steven A. Smith was one of the higher paid, non-former players at 10M. Quite a few on-air people were in the 6M range but many less prominent, younger ones were in the six figure range, and some even in the high five figures.

[MOMFUDSKI]

3. I think Romo

does a GREAT job. I recently commented to my husband how impressed I was with him as an announcer. Never been much of an Aikman fan.

[brush]

5. Romo does do a good job. He anticipates what plays are...

coming next and quite often he's right. I think Aikman's style is different but he knows his football.

[Auggie]

2. Aikman does a good job IMO. Important MNF airs better games though.

Moot point otherwise

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. Well, when you remove it from a major broadcast network

And put it on a channel that not everyone can get. (Hell, it was 2004 before my 'out in the sticks' part of NC even got cable!) And, not everyone can afford a satellite connection. I would love to see the viewership numbers after they did that. At the time, I felt that was about the dumbest move I had ever heard of. And, it seems it is playing out just like I thought it would.