Troy Aikman’s expected move to ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth could have a pretty big domino effect across several networks and announcers.
According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, a number of things could happen next: including Amazon offering big money to lure Sean McVay away from the Rams and ESPN pursuing either Al Michaels or Joe Buck to partner with Aikman.
Michaels has been closely linked to Amazon and has long been expected to become its play-by-play voice when the streaming service exclusively takes over Thursday Night Football next season.
But Michaels has waited to see who Amazon would bring in as his partner, per Marchand, and it appeared to be Aikman before ESPN swooped him with an annual salary that would pay him more than Tony Romo’s $17 million per year.
Cris Collinsworth was also eliminated after he inked a $12.5 million a year deal to continue on NBC’s Sunday Night Football with Mike Tirico.
McVay could be an option but he will need to be convinced to leave coaching the Rams. He currently makes $8.5 million as the Rams head coach but could nearly double that if he heads to the broadcast booth and now may be his best chance, per Marchand.
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Meanwhile, at ESPN, Buck is the preferred choice to pair with Aikman as the two have been together the last 20 years at Fox.
Buck still has one year remaining on his contract, though, and the network would need to grant him permission to speak with ESPN.
If Buck does leave, Fox would need to fill both play-by-play and analyst roles. Kevin Burkhardt, Adam Amin and Joe Davis would be internal options to replace Buck while Greg Olson or Sean Payton could potentially replace Aikman.
If ESPN cannot land Buck, it could turn to Michaels, who was the voice of Monday Night Football for 20 years, beginning in 1986.
Per Marchand, Michaels has long desired to work with Aikman although his producer of choice from NBC was recently hired by Amazon.
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