ESPN is hoping to tie down star NFL announcers, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, before their contracts run out at the end of this season.
Together with sideline reporters Laura Rutledge and Lisa Salters, Buck and Aikman are the voices of Monday Night Football and they will kick off their fifth season together when the Chiefs face the Broncos on September 14.
But, as reported by Front Office Sports, both broadcasters are entering the final months of their current deals and, with the Super Bowl coming to the network for the very first time, ESPN could face paying a hefty price to keep hold of its flagship pair.
Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback with the Dallas Cowboys, signed a five-year, $90million deal with ESPN back in 2022.
Buck, meanwhile, is approaching the end of his five-year, $75m deal that sees the play-by-play announcer earn $15m a year. Before joining ESPN, they called six Super Bowls together on Fox.
ESPN is hoping to tie down Joe Buck (L) and Troy Aikman (R) before their contracts run out
Both popular broadcasters are entering the final months of their current deals with ESPN
That will be seven come the end of the 2026 season because, next February, the network will broadcast Super Bowl LXI – alongside ABC – for the first time. The Super Bowl will then return to ESPN after the 2030 season.
According to FOS, Aikman became the joint-highest paid NFL commentator when he signed his $18m-a-year deal with ESPN. But then Tom Brady shifted the landscape by signing a 10-year, $375m deal with FOX.
‘At some point I’ll walk away… but for right now, I’m really enjoying my time at ESPN,’ Aikman previously told the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast.
‘I love working with Joe. I love the people I work with. It’s been a lot of fun. I don’t see the end coming anytime soon.’
Buck, meanwhile, has said he hopes to end his career at ESPN. ‘If you reached through my computer screen right now and handed me a contract to continue my time at ESPN, I would sign it without even looking at it,’ he told Deitsch.
‘I’ve loved every second of it and I am hopeful that I’m at ESPN for the rest of my career.’
