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The NFL has “no concern” about the issues surrounding ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcasting duo of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck, the league’s top media executive said Wednesday.
Front Office Sports reported last week that Buck and Aikman argued in the booth about Aikman’s unsettled contract situation; he’s set to become a free agent after the Super Bowl, which will be the Disney-owned network’s first. Buck has a new six-year deal that will take him through ESPN’s next Super Bowl.
“No concern,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s chief media officer. “I don’t know if you watched the game on Monday night. It was an incredible game, right? It was an incredible game and incredible coverage by Joe and Troy, just like they always do. And, by the way, also, there’s so many other ways that Disney covered that game. It was the first real [Pat] McAfee launch, too, adding to that experience. So, look, that’s something… that we’re really not involved with.”
Schroeder spoke at a news conference as the league concluded a two-day meeting of the NFL’s team owners at a Manhattan hotel.
“I think the fans are deserving of first-class game production, which Joe and Troy have, I think—going back to ’02 or something was their first year—a history of doing that as well as anyone,” he said. “And I think you’ll continue to see them do that as well as anyone. I thought it was awesome Monday night. And so we’re incredibly excited about the year… and the Super Bowl and their coverage and getting them back as far as ESPN’s first ever and ABC’s in a long time. They’re going to do an unbelievable job.”
Aikman and Buck worked the 49ers-Commanders game Monday night in Santa Clara, Calif., their first broadcast after FOS reported on the tension between the pair.
Aikman appeared to publicly confirm the rift during an appearance Thursday with Dallas radio station 96.7 The Ticket. “There’s probably a time and a place for all that to be discussed,” he said. “I don’t know if now is the time. I don’t know that it’s hard to figure out kind of what’s happened.”
He also said that he would “broadcast through this season” and then “be a free agent at the end of the year and kind of see what happens.”
He also could be a free agent, if he chooses, as a consultant to NFL teams or even as a front office executive if he were to pursue such opportunities. Aikman served as a consultant to the Dolphins last offseason but he does not have a “formal and ongoing agreement” to continue in that role for Miami, a source familiar with the arrangement told FOS last week.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said after the meeting ended that he’s paying close attention to the developments involving Aikman, a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback who won three Super Bowls in his thirteen-year career in Dallas.
“I sure am,” Jones said. “I think the world of Troy. And I’m always very interested and so proud of what he’s become, the person as well as the career he’s having. And I’m proud of that and it feels good to have been with him early as a player. So yes, I pay a lot of attention to him.”
Aikman, 59, is ready to be an NFL front office executive if he so desired, Jones said Wednesday.
“Troy is very capable,” Jones said. “And he’s so really, relatively speaking, he’s in his youth [in his] career. And he’s very capable of doing [any] number of things, certainly having to do with football. I don’t know of any area, short of getting back out there on the field … that he’s not qualified and competent to go into.”
Because of Aikman’s consulting work with the Dolphins, the NFL made him subject to the same team-access restrictions this season in his ESPN role that have applied to Tom Brady, based on Brady’s dual role as a Raiders part-owner and Fox analyst.
