The Troy Aikman situation at ESPN appears to be worsening.
Appearing on Dallas’ 96.7 The Ticket Thursday, lead ESPN “Monday Night Football” analyst Troy Aikman did not deny a report that he and longtime “MNF” partner Joe Buck have “tension,” and offered the clearest sign yet that a return to ESPN is not guaranteed.
Asked about the Wednesday report by Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports that he and Buck have had “tension” — culminating in “an argument” prior to Monday’s Bills-Rams game — Aikman chuckled and said that there would be a time and place to address it, but that it is not “hard to figure out kind of what’s happened,” according to audio publicized by the Ari Meirov social media feed.
Aikman then, unsolicited, addressed his future. “I’ll broadcast through this season and I’ll be a free agent at the end of the year and kind of see what happens,” Aikman said, as first noted by Joseph Hoyt of The Dallas Morning News. “I’m looking forward to whatever the rest of this year does hold, with the Super Bowl and all that, and where my next landing spot might be.”
Aikman’s five-year contract with ESPN expires after this season and he has not yet been offered a new deal. Buck, on the other hand, reached a six-year contract extension according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic last month.
In the event that Aikman leaves ESPN, there are multiple possible openings available. CBS parted ways with Tony Romo earlier this month and has not granted his replacement JJ Watt a permanent role on its lead broadcast team. Amazon Prime Video reached a reported extension with Kirk Herbstreit, but per Marchand, has the “flexibility” to move on if a preferred option becomes available.
It should be noted that heading into the expiration of his previous contract with FOX, Aikman was courted heavily by Prime Video for its “Thursday Night Football” package.
ESPN’s acquisition of Buck and Aikman in the 2022 offseason revitalized a “Monday Night Football” booth that had become an underwhelming revolving door. The longtime partners, who began working together at FOX in 2002, have in just five seasons become the longest-tenured “Monday Night Football” pairing in more than a decade — since Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden.
The five seasons without any changes to the “MNF” booth is the longest stretch for the series since Al Michaels, Frank Dierdorf and Frank Gifford worked together from 1987-97.
Yet beneath the surface, there have been signs of discord. ESPN is onto its third-different director for “MNF” in the five years of the Buck-Aikman era, turning to longtime Fox director Artie Kempner prior to last season. And in announcing that change in March of last year, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus told Marchand that “MNF” is “not in the same conversation with Fox and CBS relative to our overall game presentation.”
