The most high-profile free-agency signing this NFL offseason? It was a package deal. Sort of. It shifted the balance of power among rivals, leaving one roster depleted and the other overhauled. It was as much about emotion—perceptions of respect and disrespect—as it was the staggering financial terms. It involved familiar, long-embedded stars, one age 55, the other 53.
Before—and while—the Rams defeated the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, the ground was shaking in NFL broadcast circles. It was an open secret that NBC was gently nudging Al Michaels out of the Sunday Night Football booth to make room for Mike Tirico, who’d been patiently waiting in the wings for years. Michaels would “transition” to Amazon’s Thursday Night Football package, paired with Kirk Herbstreit.
Photo Illustration by Dan Larkin; Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images (Aikman); Lynne Sladky/AP/Shutterstock (Buck); Ross Lewis/Getty Images (Background)
Then came the real personnel shakeup. Troy Aikman—displeased, multiple sources tell Sports Illustrated, by the tenor of his negotiations with Fox (and vice versa)—left the network for ESPN, headed for the Monday Night Football booth. Days later came news that Aikman would be joined there by his longtime partner, Joe Buck. In keeping with the wage scale set by CBS and Tony Romo—one of the few NFL broadcasters not to switch teams in the last few months—Aikman will reportedly earn $90 million over five years. Buck is expected to be in the neighborhood of roughly $15 million per season. (In exchange for letting Buck out of his contract, Fox received broadcast rights to the Penn State–Purdue game from ESPN.)
Aikman and Buck are tasked with restoring glory to the Monday Night Football broadcast that ESPN has struggled to define since 2006. But you might say MNF is now driving downfield. Whether it’s complementary or supplementary, the ManningCast adds cache to ESPN’s night. And after this year, the network will have the ability to flex games as the season goes, improving the quality of matchups. ESPN/ABC is now in the rotation to broadcast Super Bowls and will call the grand finale for the ’26 season. That made the poaching of an established, if expensive, announcer duo all the more appealing.
Sports Illustrated spoke with Aikman and Buck ahead of their Monday-night debut.
I suspect this summer was different from previous summers?
TROY AIKMAN: Oh yeah.
JOE BUCK: For me it was night and day. You know, I’m 53 now and I started broadcasting professionally when I was 19. This is the first time in 35 years that I’ve not done a baseball game.
Al Michaels tells this great story about Monday Night Football: When Dennis Miller comes aboard [in the summer of 2000] the crew does these rehearsals and auditions in some broom closet, some out-of-the-way studio in the San Fernando Valley. I’m guessing you guys didn’t have to do a whole bunch of secret reps like that?
AIKMAN: Well, we did a rehearsal game in Seattle. It wasn’t on air. Louis Riddick and Steve Levy and Dan Orlovsky did it for the actual network broadcast. But we were in the actual booth. It was really just a chance to meet some of the people who are in the booth so we didn’t walk in on opening night and not have a comfort level [with the crew]. We did a couple quarters and then headed out of the stadium and back home.
BUCK: Yeah, [this change] is not a small thing, because I’ve heard one voice football-wise for basically 20 years in my ear, counting me to break. I’ve heard that same voice lead me into a pre-produced package or a little video thing or jamming a graphic in. So now we have new people in our lives that we are really dependent on.
I was thinking: You were on only one team, Troy.
AIKMAN: As a player? Yes.
So what’s it like going through free agency?
AIKMAN: I didn’t go through that as a professional player. I went through it as a collegiate athlete when I was transferring from Oklahoma [to UCLA]. But in broadcasting I’d spent 21 years with Fox and I’d never been a free agent. To have the ability to talk to other networks and really get a feel for how I was viewed and valued in the industry by other people was nice. I don’t want to say that I didn’t feel valued at Fox in any way. But you always kind of wonder [about your perception at other networks]. So, that was my biggest takeaway, that, you know, hey, It feels good to know that people respect the work that I do, and that they like it.
BUCK: It’s no different than anybody in any line of work. If you’re [at one place] long enough, eventually the Hey, great job kind of goes away. And you sometimes go home wondering: Do the people I work for actually think I did a good job on that World Series, or do they think I’ve messed it up? You want that feedback. And then you get into this odd limbo land. … For me, [free agency] was different than with Troy, because he really had the opportunity to go talk to other networks. I was [still] under contract at Fox. I had to kind of do the opposite and weasel my way out of that situation to go join him over at ESPN. But it was a lot of the same stuff, a lot of the same words. You know, God, if we could get you, it would just be unbelievable. And we can build around you and Troy. And so when you hear that stuff, that’s exciting. I mean he was [at Fox] for 21 years. I was there for 27 years. And it’s just nice to kind of hit the restart or refresh button and see how they do it elsewhere.
Fred Vuich/Sports Illustrated
It’s one thing to say, Oh my God, you’re amazing. But this is backing it up with offers.
BUCK: Yeah, anybody can say, Oh, that was unbelievable, then go on and roll their eyes and, you know, Yeah, we placated the ego of that maniacal play-by-play guy. He’s good for another week. But [ESPN] stepped up. If we had talked at this point last year, I don’t think either one of us would think that we would be at ESPN. It came fast and furious. I’m thrilled as hell that it happened, but I certainly did not see it coming.
To what extent were you guys in touch during that free-agent period?
AIKMAN: I didn’t want there to be any surprises with Joe or anyone on our crew, so I was very transparent. Whether that was the right thing to do or not, I don’t really know. But I just thought that it was important to me that they understand where I was contractually. So that at the end of the season, if I didn’t [end up] staying at Fox, it wouldn’t blind-side anyone. I was very open with Joe on it. I owed him that. He’s one of my closest friends. And then when I decided that I was leaving, he was one of the first people I called. There were rumblings that Hey, maybe, maybe Fox would let him out of his contract. We then communicated a lot, because it’s what we both wanted.
BUCK: It would be an overstatement to say we talked every day, but we talked at least every other day. There was nothing more important going on in our lives, at least professionally. And it was like, O.K., you’re gone. Now, how is this going to progress to where either I’m there or now I’m working with somebody else? And I didn’t know who that would be at Fox. It was an easy call for me to try to make this happen and get out of the last year of my deal.
You guys have the Browns in Week 8, but their quarterback, Deshaun Watson—who was suspended 11 games for alleged sexual assault and harassment—won’t be eligible to play. Have you thought about how you’re going to address that one?
BUCK: Initially, when the six-game suspension came down, that would have been his first home game—talking about Deshaun Watson. And I’ve done this long enough to know that if that was the case—if it was his first home game—I would have spent the entire week coming up with what I would say and how I would say it. How do you fit something so serious in between the end of a commercial break and the first play from scrimmage, or between second and third down? You can’t ignore it. But you’re always weighing: How much does the viewer want to keep hearing about this? And how much are you making it about your personal opinion or where you stand so you check some box? Eventually the person at home is going, Hey, will you just call the game? We’ve been talking about it for months. But you have to talk about it. I would have spent six days getting ready for that. [But now] that’ll be for somebody else.
Everett Collection
What don't the fans get? What do you wish people understood about what you do?
AIKMAN: What we get a lot is that we don’t like their team. I don’t dislike any team. I have no rooting interest for any team—and that includes the Cowboys. I hope for a good game. But I don’t dislike any team, and I know Joe doesn’t dislike any team. But fans are fanatical about a team, and it’s why the league is as popular as it is. I know that when I’m watching UCLA play and I’m emotionally invested in that game, when I hear the announcer say “That wasn’t a foul,” I’d probably go, “You’ve got to be kidding me—come on!” I understand it. I just wish some fans would understand that we don’t dislike your team. Somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose, and we’ve gotta celebrate those teams that are playing well.
Where are your phones during a game?
BUCK: Mine is right in front of me. I have a certain ringtone that this phone will make. I’ve got two daughters that live on each coast; I’ve got 4½-year-old twins; I’ve got a wife; I’ve got a mom who’s 83; I’ve got a sister. … I don’t like to be cut off, even for three hours. Sometimes my daughter Trudy will text me and say, “You know, this is something you left hanging. You need to clean this up.” Like, I get real criticism from my daughters, which is really helpful in the moment. I’m certainly not on Twitter [during a game], if that’s your question.
Do you ever make physical contact? We hear you, but we don’t see you much during the game. What is your interaction like during games?
AIKMAN: You know, there’s body language, there’s physical touch. If I’m leaning in and Joe knows that I’ve asked for a replay, but he wants to get something, he’ll touch my shoulder to let me know that. … Now, I’ve seen where [analysts] are a little oblivious to whatever is going on with the play-by-play, almost to where you’re blocking the guy out. That’s not the way we operate within our booth. I know Joe can say something and there could be dead air. But I know he’s not done talking. I know there’s something he wants to add to that. And I think that’s part of the comfort of working together as long as we have.
BUCK: There’s an energy that you feel off each other, and it’s never [through] eye contact. I don’t think I ever look at him in the eyes once the game starts. His eyes are here or in his monitor, or over here. I’m to his left. But if there’s something I want him to make sure that he hears, I’ll grab him by the forearm and go, “And that’s something, Troy, we talked about coming into this game: They have a tough time picking up the blitz,” or whatever. So it doesn’t get lost. That’s why three-man booths don’t work as well.
I feel like I’m talking to a romantic couple. Did you guys hit it off immediately, or did you have to grow into this level of comfort?
BUCK: When we started, it was me, Troy and Cris Collinsworth. And those are two alphas that we’re all trying to fit in the same booth. One guy wants one set of replays, one guy wants the other. There’s not a lot of that unspoken energy field because there’s another person there, so it throws that whole thing out of whack. I would say that Troy and I were probably closer in that three-man situation than I was with Cris. … When Cris left, [Troy and I] had lives that kind of paralleled each other. We both, at the time, had two daughters. We went through divorces at about the same time. We both got remarried. He was at my second wedding, and I was at his. Our friendship has just grown. We’ve been together for 20 years. Like you say, it’s like a couple. I don’t think we’ve ever had a fight. I don’t think we’ve ever been like, “Troy was this, or he said this, and I didn’t know what he meant.” Which is pretty unique with the high kind of stressful job we have, at least in our own weird minds.
Do you have a favorite Monday Night Football memory growing up?
AIKMAN: Monday Night Football was a big part of my life as a kid. The voices of Howard Cosell and Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. They echoed through our house every Monday night. … When I signed, a friend of mine sent me the book Monday Night Mayhem, and I found it to be fascinating. I will say this: It’s an absolute honor to be a part of this franchise. It’s a historic property. It’s a historic booth when you look at the announcers who have done it. There’s no other booth in football that has the history or is as iconic.
BUCK: When I was a kid, my dad did over 10 years of Monday Night Football on the radio with Hank Stram. I would sit in the back of that booth and I just knew something big was going on a couple of booths down. I remember waiting for halftime, for Howard to do the highlights. It was groundbreaking, appointment television, and hopefully we’ll make it that again.
Speed round. Fill in the blank: A three-man booth is ____.
BUCK: Hard.
AIKMAN: Challenging.
BUCK: Unnecessary.
Tom Brady getting $35 million to call football games is ____.
BUCK: Mind-blowing.
AIKMAN: Awesome.
Serious question: You’ve switched emails and networks, the partnership stays intact. You’ve got a new surrounding team and new guys in the truck and the control room. How big a story is this in your eyes? What are you emphasizing about the transition?
BUCK: I’m just worried about [CBS’s Jim] Nantz and Romo. I mean, they’re the only ones that just sat there. Everybody else is in upheaval. … But yeah, I know what you’re asking. I’m not sure fans really care. I mean, some do. But they just want to know where the game is, what channel it’s on. I think it’s going to sound a lot and look a lot like what it’s always been, whether that’s good or bad. As far as is it a big deal? It is in our world, because you want to make ESPN proud. You want to go in and wow them, and you want them to go, Oh my God, we’re so glad we got you guys. So there’s that pressure. You want to impress your new bosses. But you can’t let that overtake you and then do stuff you don’t typically do. So you have to fight that urge. Is it a big deal? It is in the TV world. Buck and Aikman are at ESPN. But the general public? I don’t think they really care.
Just to be clear: Dennis Miller isn’t going to be on the left of you. You’re keeping this at a two-man booth—right?
AIKMAN: I wouldn’t mind if he was. Lovely guy. I said how challenging three-man booths are, but I happened to love it when he was doing Monday Night Football.
O.K., which of you looks better in a canary-yellow jacket?
BUCK: Neither one of us.
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