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 booth to make room for Mike Tirico, who’d been patiently waiting in the wings for years. Michaels would “transition” to Amazon’s package, paired with Kirk Herbstreit.
Then came the real personnel shakeup. Troy Aikman—displeased, multiple sources tell , by the tenor of his negotiations with Fox (and vice versa)—left the network for ESPN, headed for the 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 broadcast that ESPN has struggled to define since 2006. But you might say 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.
spoke with Aikman and Buck ahead of their Monday-night debut.
