Troy Aikman will be making more money to call games on TV than he was paid to play them on the field.
It hasn’t been a secret that Aikman has wanted to leave FOX for a while. He wasn’t a fan of them re-signing Skip Bayless and wanted a fresh start with some fresh cash.
Many people thought he would go to Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, but then ESPN threw him this massive bag that he couldn’t turn down, according to NY Post.
Hall of Famer Troy Aikman is expected to leave Fox Sports to become the main analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” The Post has learned.
Aikman’s ESPN deal will be for five years, according to sources, and his yearly salary is expected to approach or exceed the neighborhood of Tony Romo’s $17.5 million per year contract with CBS. The deal is not yet signed, but it is near completion.
Aikman’s seismic move will shake-up NFL TV free agency. Already this offseason, the contract of Al Michaels, arguably the greatest NFL play-by-player of all time, ran out with NBC.
Michaels, 77, has been on the 1-yard line in his negotiations to be the lead play-by-play voice when Amazon Prime Video begins its exclusive coverage of “Thursday Night Football.” Michaels had hoped Aikman would join him on Thursday nights.
ESPN currently has Steve Levy, Louis Riddick Jr. and Brian Griese as its lead “Monday Night Football” team. Over the next few years, ESPN will have an expansion in NFL games from 18 to 25. They will need multiple crews to call them.
Aikman was being paid $13.2 million a year from FOX but had a clause in his contract that he could leave if he could find a better deal.
It apparently was an intelligent clause to have because he has one foot out of the door now.
Flip the page for Aikman going off on Skip Bayless.
