For the second time in a day, ESPN’s Troy Aikman made clear that he believes his days with the network are numbered.
Hours after he said in a Dallas radio interview that he will “be a free agent” at the end of the season and is looking forward to where his “next landing spot may be,” Aikman told sports media writer Jimmy Traina late Thursday that he believes his time with ESPN is ending. “It just seems to be where they’re going,” he said, according to Traina. “[T]hey’re gonna go in a different direction because there’s been no talks, no contract negotiations. We’re in a Super Bowl year. The Super Bowl is Feb. 14. My contract ends in March. It just doesn’t seem logical that if they were gonna keep me, something wouldn’t be in place before that.”
Aikman has a history of discussing his contract status in the media, and to this point, he has given no indication that he himself wants to leave ESPN. Instead, he appears to be drawing the conclusion that the lack of a contract from ESPN means they are uninterested in retaining his services — at least on the timeline he expected.
Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported late last month that ESPN planned to wait until after the Super Bowl to negotiate with both Aikman and its lead college football voice Kirk Herbstreit. There is zero indication that ESPN plans to part ways with Herbstreit.
There does not appear to be any obvious rhyme or reason as to why ESPN would wait to negotiate with its top football analysts until after the season, but negotiate a new contract with play-by-play voice Joe Buck before the season. The impact of that split timeline has been to introduce uncertainty and tension into its lead NFL booth months before the most significant broadcast in the 50-year history of ESPN.
By now, it is clear that ESPN’s decision to hold off on negotiating with Aikman has alienated its top NFL analyst, driven an apparent wedge between him and his longtime partner and friend Buck, overshadowed the “Monday Night Football” broadcasts, and created a season-long narrative that will dog the network all the way through the Super Bowl — and all for no apparent reason. Even if ESPN planned from the start to move on from Aikman, its approach would have created unnecessary headaches.
