Over the weekend, Joe Buck caught up with Jon “Stugotz” Weiner and Mike Ryan of The Dan Le Batard Show at the American Century Championship, an annual celebrity tournament in Lake Tahoe. Buck will replace Steve Levy in the Monday Night Football booth this fall, teaming up with color commentator Troy Aikman, his longtime broadcast partner at Fox. While most believed the two defected to ESPN as part of a package deal, Buck insists that wasn’t the case. In fact, before Buck’s departure from Fox, the network had contemplated pairing him with Tom Brady.
“They floated that to me before I left,” said Buck. “I expect him to be great because he’s great at everything.”
Brady’s unprecedented 10-year, $375-million contract with Fox, which goes into effect when he retires, stunned many in the industry, who couldn’t believe Fox was willing to pay that amount for a novice broadcaster, who, throughout his storied career, has not been terribly interesting or outspoken. The NFL is too big to fail—years of bad press and countless PR disasters have done little to curb fans’ interest—making announcers more or less expendable. Former ESPN executive John Skipper recently called Brady an “expensive trophy,” a luxury Fox didn’t need but could afford, the equivalent of Jeff Bezos spending billions to go to space for a few minutes. Buck, who signed a reported five-year, $75-million pact with ESPN, is as surprised as anyone to see media outlets begin to shell out seven and eight-figure salaries to announcers, including some (like Brady) with little or no experience.
“My dad told me, ‘If you get hit by a bus going into the game, they’re still going to play the game and they’re probably not going to have a moment of silence for you.’ Nobody’s tuning into the game because we’re there,” said Buck. “If the announcing is not enjoyable, it could make people tune out faster if the game isn’t good. But if the game’s good, it does itself.”
A play-by-play prodigy who began calling games in his early 20s, Buck has been synonymous with Fox for over two decades. Seeing him on a new network will be an adjustment for some, though maybe not Buck, whose wife, Michelle, has already been working at ESPN for eight years.
“My wife’s been there. She does the Monday Night Football interview on the pregame show,” said Buck. “It dawned on us a couple months ago that now we’re actually going to have no time apart. I don’t know what this is going to do for my marriage and our relationship, but we’re just going to have to roll the dice and hope that it makes it stronger instead of ending it.”
Before the tournament, Buck was dreading being in the presence of Bay Area sports fans (San Francisco is about three hours west of Tahoe), who have not been kind to him over the years.
“San Francisco, I remember I was packing up my backpack after a World Series game at AT&T Park,” recalled Buck. “This father and son were down there and they [go] ‘Mr. Buck! Mr. Buck!’ Eventually I look over and I wave to them and this little kid and his father both gave me the finger.”
Buck finished a respectable 31st out of 87 competitors at Lake Tahoe. This year’s champion was former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who also won in 2018 and 2019.
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