When Joe Buck signed a $100 million extension with ESPN, the natural assumption around the industry was that Troy Aikman would soon follow. Buck and Aikman have worked together for 25 years, first at Fox and at ESPN since 2022. They are often regarded as the best broadcast booth in sports.
Yet, within hours of the report about Buck’s deal, industry chatter suggested that ESPN and Aikman were not close to an agreement.
This week, Aikman addressed the situation — along with a reported confrontation between him and Buck during Monday Night Football — and said ESPN has not engaged in any contract negotiations with him. His deal expires in May 2027, after the Super Bowl in February that he will call.
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Aikman suggested that leaving ESPN now appears to be the most likely outcome.
“It just seems to be where they’re going,” he said on KTCK The Ticket in Dallas.
As of publication, there is still plenty of mystery surrounding why ESPN wouldn’t want to keep Aikman. Yes, he’s expensive. His current deal pays him around $18 million per year. ESPN, however, is paying others more, including Buck, Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee.
As the lead NFL analyst for Monday Night Football and ESPN’s first Super Bowl this February, there is an argument that Aikman is the most valuable member of that group.
One industry-wide theory is that Buck wants a new partner. At the very least, Buck signing an extension before Aikman proves he is willing to work with someone else. He also apparently wasn’t interested in using his leverage to ensure that he and Aikman remained together.
Sources close to Buck have denied this.
Another theory is that ESPN wants Peyton and Eli Manning in the booth and views this as its opportunity. However, unless the Mannings have privately agreed to such a move, which seems unlikely, pairing them with Buck sounds more like wishful thinking than an actual plan.
Then there are the Kelce brothers.
ESPN moved Jason Kelce into the color analyst role alongside Dave Pasch and Kurt Warner for its international games on NFL Network this season. Kelce has been polarizing, but impressive in the role. ESPN could envision eventually pairing him with his brother Travis, who is expected to retire from the NFL after this season, alongside Buck.
On paper, that sounds intriguing. The problem is that there is no indication Travis is interested in becoming a full-time game analyst, much less that the Kelce brothers would be ready to anchor ESPN’s most important NFL property.
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Greg Olsen is another possibility. He is an impending media free agent and is viewed as a potential No. 1 game analyst, a role he previously held at Fox before Tom Brady arrived.
Olsen is good. Still, it’s difficult to see why ESPN would prefer him to Aikman, who brings more gravitas, popularity and, most importantly, 25 years of chemistry with Buck.
Sure, Olsen is 18 years younger than Aikman and would presumably cost less. If ESPN’s goal were to get younger and cheaper, though, re-signing Buck — who is only two years younger than Aikman — to a nine-figure extension doesn’t exactly fit that philosophy.
From the outside, each alternative looks like a gamble, and probably one that wouldn’t leave ESPN with a better booth than the one it already has.
That’s what makes the situation so puzzling.
ESPN spent five years trying to find a suitable Monday Night Football booth. After Mike Tirico left in 2016 and Jon Gruden returned to coaching after the 2017 season, the network cycled through various combinations involving Steve Levy, Sean McDonough, Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick.
For one reason or another, none of them clicked. And most of them are good to great broadcasters.
There was even industry chatter at the time that the instability and poor reception surrounding ESPN’s broadcasts affected the quality of games the NFL scheduled for Monday Night Football.
For what it’s worth, ESPN has enjoyed a noticeably stronger slate of games since Buck and Aikman arrived in 2022. Other factors — including ESPN’s improved relationship with the NFL — undoubtedly played a role as well.
Either way, ESPN finally found a booth worthy of the NFL’s premier games, if not the standard for NFL broadcasting altogether, and now appears prepared to break it up.
Unless there is more to the story than anyone outside the company knows, it’s difficult to understand the logic.
Of course, skeptics have dismissed the entire saga as a negotiating tactic by ESPN. That doesn’t appear to be the case. Usually, such tactics begin with, well, actual negotiations. According to Aikman, there haven’t been any.
The fact that ESPN locked up his partner before having a substantive conversation with Aikman suggests one of two things: The company has decided it doesn’t want to keep him, or it hasn’t decided that it does.
Maybe ESPN is taking the old Bill Belichick approach with the New England Patriots: better to move on from a talent a year too early than a year too late. Maybe executives see a decline coming that viewers don’t.
We are skeptical.