Come to find out, as we approach the season of plump turkey legs and similar Santa Clauses, all is not well at ESPN. Turns out Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are having a hissy fit.
Will sports broadcasting ever be the same? As the late Chick Hearn would say, “Oh me, oh my.”
Buck and Aikman have broadcast various pro football games together for 25 years. They are Abbott and Costello, but not anywhere near as funny. You tune in just to wait for Joe to say, “I’m Joe Buck and this is Hall of Famer Troy Aikman.”
Kind of gives you goose bumps.
According to various reports, Joe went out and negotiated a new contract without telling Troy. Divorce lawyers are now circling the wagons.
The reports have Joe getting $108 million for six years. That’s around $17.5 million a year, so that Joe can tell us that one of the teams on the field needs to establish a run game. Golly.
Troy didn’t know about his buddy’s new deal, wasn’t happy not to know and reportedly doesn’t quite get that much, so there is little joy in Mudville’s press box. (OK, that’s baseball, but you get the point.)
If that kind of money ruffles your feathers a bit, at a time when you need to carry a blood pressure machine with you to the gas pump and grocery store, being paid around $17 million a year and having a hissy fit about it would seem to be a little tone deaf. Remember, these guys aren’t getting hit, they describing how others are.
Troy cut his broadcasting teeth by starring at quarterback at UCLA and the Dallas Cowboys. He knew what was going on when Peyton Manning yelled “Omaha.” Joe probably knew, too, when Troy told him. Joe cut his teeth by working his way up the ranks; also maybe by hanging around a lot when dad Jack Buck broadcast for years from most of the sacred citadels of sports.
Again, these guys don’t play, they talk.
Anyway, who ever said there were attempts to introduce perspective to sports via a broadcast team? No need. Take the stats the network intern kids are handing you and create drama with the tone of your voice, even though the picture from the field covers that better.
Of course there is homework to be done.
“We talked to wide receiver Jim Lightning-Fast yesterday and he said this team is ready for a big game.”
“Coach Harold Headset told us that this is the best week of practice this team has had all year.”
Then they can throw it down to a sideline reporter:
— “Coach, how do you feel about that flat first half by your team?” (The real answer: lousy).
— “Coach, what does it mean to you winning tonight’s game?” (Real answer: It means I won’t get fired this week).
Those stick-a-microphone-in-your-face interviews always bring to mind the way the great Gregg Popovich of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs handled them. He was once asked how his team’s winning play happened. “We practiced it,” he said.
The Joe-Troy hissy fit takes on additional import because they are set to call the Feb. 14 Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. ESPN has three and a half months to fix this, but there is speculation that even if the hissy fit isn’t settled, the game will go on.
How about this: Hire Peyton Manning to do the color commentary. He certainly knows football and he has that elusive thing that most of those in sports speaking into microphones lack. A sense of humor.
Pair him with the legendary Al Michaels, who is 81, also has a sense of humor and still brings it on Prime Ticket’s Thursday night game. Michaels knows more about baseball and football and yes, even hockey, than most of his younger peers.
But obviously, for that Manning-Michaels matchup to happen, we’d have to believe in miracles.
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