Troy Aikman has never been shy about speaking plainly, and this week was no exception. When he went on 96.7 The Ticket in Dallas and got asked about his future at ESPN, the Hall of Fame quarterback kept it simple. According to him, he’ll work this season, become a free agent when it ends, and see where his next landing spot is.
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It was a loose answer, so Jimmy Traina followed up and asked him to explain, and that’s where the real reasoning came out.
“Here’s what Aikman said to me about ESPN: “It just seems to be where they’re going – that they’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,” Traina posted on Substack.
“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. I’m looking forward to whatever the rest of this season does hold and the Super Bowl and all that and where my next landing spot may be,” Aikman said earlier on the same interview.
Troy Aikman left FOX in 2022 after 21 years, joining ESPN to anchor Monday Night Football alongside Joe Buck. At the time, he said FOX never made him an offer to stay and that the reason he left was a lack of communication. Now, with his ESPN exit near confirmed, Aikman is alleging that the network is freezing him out.
Put simply, the silence is the signal. Aikman is finishing a five-year contract that pays him $18 million a year, and it expires in March, only weeks after ESPN airs its first Super Bowl. If the network wanted him back, he figures it would have started the conversation by now. So far, he says, it hasn’t.
Fans might expect that to make the rest of the season uncomfortable, but Aikman insists it won’t. Traina asked him that very question, and his answer was short and upbeat.
“The rest of the season will be fine. Excited about it. Looking forward to it. It’s awesome that we got the Super Bowl. Not a problem at all,” his post further read.
Still, the timing makes it awkward, partly because this partnership has such a long history. Aikman and Joe Buck have been on-air partners for 25 years, and they moved to ESPN together in 2022 on five-year deals, reportedly worth $90 million for Aikman and $75 million for Buck.
The pairing has paid off, with this season’s Week 1 telecast reportedly drawing 23.2 million viewers, ESPN’s biggest Week 1 audience for the package since it landed Monday Night Football in 2006. ESPN is now about to air its first Super Bowl, and Aikman plans to be there for it.
But the two men are no longer in the same position. This contract disparity reportedly boiled over in the booth before Monday’s game.
Inside Troy Aikman and Joe Buck’s reported ESPN booth argument
The reported reason for all this is a contract gap between Aikman and his longtime partner, Joe Buck. A month ago, ESPN locked Buck in with a six-year extension worth around $108 million. Aikman, meanwhile, is still waiting on his.
That imbalance is reportedly what stirred up trouble in the booth. According to Front Office Sports, Buck “broke the ice” on the unspoken tension by raising Aikman’s expiring deal. Words were exchanged, and then things calmed down.
Viewers never saw a hint of it during a telecast that ran more than three hours, went to overtime, and featured 35 fourth-quarter points. ESPN declined to comment. For two men who have shared a booth for 25 years, it was a rare crack in the relationship.
When asked about the report on The Ticket, Aikman neither addressed the argument nor denied the tension.
“There’s probably a time and a place for all that,” Aikman said, via Joseph Hoyt of the Dallas Morning News. “I don’t know if now is the time. I don’t know if it’s hard to figure out kind of what happened. 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. I’m looking forward to whatever the rest of this season does hold and the Super Bowl and all that and where my next landing spot may be.”
Even with all that going on, Aikman has plenty to point to when it comes to earning a new deal. And if he ends up on the open market, he’d likely be one of the most in-demand voices in broadcasting, though nothing is set in stone yet.