Tony Romo may no longer be CBS\u2019s top NFL analyst, but he\u2019s likely still collecting a hefty share of the network\u2019s money.<\/p>\n
According to The Athletic\u2019s Andrew Marchand<\/a>, Romo and CBS reached a financial settlement before Friday\u2019s announcement that the two sides were parting ways, citing industry sources who weren\u2019t authorized to discuss the private negotiations. Because the matter never went to court, Marchand reports, the former Dallas Cowboys signal-caller will likely be paid a good portion of the money remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n Romo signed a 10-year, $180 million deal with CBS in 2020, and he entered this season with roughly four years and $72 million left, worth about $18 million annually. Like nearly every major talent contract, Romo\u2019s included a morals clause<\/a>, which gives networks grounds to challenge a deal when a star can no longer represent the brand after a public embarrassment. Romo\u2019s OWI arrest in Milwaukee in July<\/a>, and the body camera footage that followed<\/a>, handed CBS that opening, though using it to void the contract would have almost certainly meant a protracted legal fight.<\/p>\n Romo hadn\u2019t sounded like someone ready to walk away. In his September statement, his first public comments since the arrest<\/a>, he acknowledged an over-reliance on alcohol while weaning himself off pain medication, while saying he looked forward to returning to CBS \u201cin time.\u201d The statement did not appear to have been coordinated with the network, and CBS declined to comment<\/a>, offering only its original leave announcement in response.\u00a0 By then, Puck\u2019s John Ourand had already reported<\/a> that executives across the industry considered Romo\u2019s CBS tenure finished, and weeks later, he put the odds of Romo not returning<\/a> at 95 percent. Noting that Romo earned $18 million a year, Ourand suggested CBS saw a chance to save money, but predicted it would come down to a negotiation over what figure it would take for Romo to leave without a fight.<\/p>\n By Friday, they had apparently reached that number.<\/p>\n CBS announced that it and Romo had mutually agreed to part ways,<\/a> and that J.J. Watt would remain<\/a> alongside Jim Nantz<\/a> and Tracy Wolfson<\/a> in the network\u2019s top booth for the rest of the season. Romo, in a statement of his own<\/a>, said he plans to take a break for the first time in his life and focus on his health and family before moving on to his next opportunity.<\/p>\n For CBS, the arrest offered an escape from a contract many around the network had reportedly come to resent. Romo landed his 10-year, $180 million deal in 2020 after ESPN made an aggressive push to lure him to Monday Night Football, forcing CBS to make him the highest-paid analyst in sports television to keep him. Fox\u2019s Colin Cowherd has argued that CBS executives harbored resentment toward Romo<\/a> dating back to those negotiations, and the frustration only grew as his on-air work regressed. Romo\u2019s tendency to fill airtime with noises, tangents, and half-finished thoughts drew mounting criticism<\/a> from viewers and prominent media voices alike, and in 2023, Marchand reported that CBS held what he described as an \u201cintervention\u201d with its lead analyst<\/a>, with McManus visiting Romo at home and lead producer Jim Rikhoff reviewing game footage with him over dinner to push him to prepare better. The network disputed that characterization<\/a>, though then-CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus later acknowledged he had given Romo feedback on how to improve. The concerns never fully went away, and as recently as January, Marchand questioned whether Romo was doing his homework<\/a>, saying the trust and chemistry between Romo and Jim Nantz simply wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n The exact figure of Romo\u2019s settlement wasn\u2019t disclosed, and it may never be. But given that CBS chose to negotiate rather than litigate, Romo won\u2019t be leaving empty-handed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Romo may no longer be CBS\u2019s top NFL analyst, but he\u2019s likely still collecting a hefty share…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[26604,47753,99,39777],"class_list":["post-870997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cbs-sports","tag-nfl-on-cbs","tag-sports","tag-tony-romo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}