Hall of Famer Troy Aikman is right at the edge of his five-year, $18 million-a-year contract with ESPN. But there is no communication from the network about a contract extension. That uncertainty has now sparked a closer look at where the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback stands in the NFL broadcasting market. Speaking on Awful Announcing’s The Play-By-Play podcast, Brendon Kleen weighed in on the situation.
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“Aikman is kind of smack dab in the middle of that. He, I believe, is right around Romo at 18 or so,” Brendon Kleen said. “He’s not getting to Brady. He’s not doubling his salary. And so, it kind of leaves me wondering like, he’s already near the top of the market, especially given that Tony Romo doesn’t even really count in this conversation anymore. That contract is expected to be bought out and not even be part of this anymore.”
Kleen, referring to Andrew Marchand’s analysis, pointed out that Greg Olsen received about $10 million a year during his time with FOX’s number one booth. When he dropped to the number two booth, his salary went down to $3 million. He further noted that Kirk Herbstreit received an eight-figure salary at Prime Video. Meanwhile, Cris Collinsworth was at $12.5 million, and Tony Romo earned $18 million. But at the top of it all was, of course, Tom Brady with his nigh-on $38 million contract.
Catching up to Brady is certainly a long shot for many, including Aikman. To make things worse, the former Cowboys star has made a few blunders on live TV. During the Week 2 game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New York Giants, he confused the Rams’ jersey number 90 (Tyler Davis) for Aaron Donald. And Donald wasn’t even on the field during that play. Last season, he mistook the Vikings’ quarterback, J.J. McCarthy, for US Congressman Kevin McCarthy.
For now, Aikman’s stance at ESPN remains in uncertain waters. During a conversation with the Sports Media podcast’s Richard Deitsch, Aikman confessed that he believed his contract extension with ESPN would have been done by now. After all, he’s never gone into the last year of his contract ever since he signed with the Cowboys. Meanwhile, Joe Buck recently signed a six-year, $108 million contract extension with ESPN.
“I’m a little curious as to what Aikman would want financially that ESPN would not give him,” Kleen continued. “They just gave Buck a pretty significant raise. You would expect they’d be willing to give Aikman one. Nothing has really changed about his job or any of this stuff. Is it like he wants to be getting the 10-year guarantee that Brady and Romo got when they signed? I can’t think of what the hold up would really be here. And that’s why I’m kind of so surprised that it got to the point where Aikman would speak with such frustration on this.”
Aikman has now entered his 25th consecutive season in the NFL broadcasting booth. He even has experience as FOX NFL’s lead game analyst. He was on the number one booth alongside Joe Buck and Erin Andrews for quite some time.
For now, Aikman is staring down the final year of his deal with no guarantee of a Tom Brady-level payday. If Aikman wants to stay in the Monday Night Football booth, he might have to settle for a lot less. But at the end of the day, that’s a decision for ESPN to make.