The relationship between Joe Buck and Troy Aikman has been strained for weeks \u2014 and maybe longer \u2014 according to what appears to be the most detailed report yet regarding their recent tension.<\/p>\n
In a piece published Wednesday, a source told Dylan Byers of Puck<\/a> that Aikman had been \u201cincreasingly cold, difficult, short\u201d and \u201cmaking comments\u201d in the weeks since learning that Buck had reached a new contract extension with ESPN. The source characterized the reported argument between Buck and Aikman<\/a> \u2014 first publicized by Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports last week<\/a> \u2014 as the result of Buck having \u201cfinally snapped.\u201d<\/p>\n Byers reported that the relationship between Buck and Aikman \u201chad been strained for some time,\u201d quoting a source as saying the partnership had suffered \u201cerosion.\u201d It is not clear when that deterioration would have begun. Buck and Aikman are not just the longest-tenured broadcast pairing in NFL history, but have had a well-documented friendship that by all accounts has extended deep into their personal lives.<\/p>\n Whatever strain existed before has apparently descended into open conflict since news of Buck\u2019s contract extension<\/a> was reported by Andrew Marchand of The Athletic<\/a> last month. Byers said he spoke to a \u201cdozen-plus\u201d sources about the rift and characterized Aikman as feeling as if Buck, ESPN and even CAA \u2014 the agency he and Buck share \u2014 had \u2018screwed him over.\u2019<\/p>\n According to Byers, Buck and his agent initially approached ESPN about an early negotiation in May and were informed as part of those talks that the company could move on from Aikman. That did not stop Buck from \u201calmost immediately\u201d accepting the deal. Buck was reportedly told that Aikman could be replaced by Greg Olsen of Fox or by ESPN\u2019s own Kirk Herbstreit, with Buck said to have been \u201cmost receptive\u201d to Olsen.<\/p>\n Aikman was not informed of the deal by Buck, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro or CAA, per Byers, leaving him feeling \u201cdouble-crossed.\u201d<\/p>\n Aikman had also sought an early renegotiation with ESPN, according to the report, but those talks ground to a halt after one of his representatives suggested his value was in the range of $30 million\/year \u2014 compared to the $18 million\/year he currently makes. His current contract was reached at a time when Tony Romo\u2019s $17 million\/year was a record-setting figure, but his replacement at Fox, Tom Brady, shortly after reset the market with a $38 million\/year deal.<\/p>\n Per Byers, Buck apologized to Aikman and the entire \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d production team for last week\u2019s argument ahead of this past week\u2019s 49ers-Commanders game, but Aikman did not reciprocate.<\/p>\n The Buck-Aikman relationship has brought uninvited scrutiny to the ESPN \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d booth mere months before the first-ever ESPN-produced Super Bowl, and the first Super Bowl on the Disney networks since 2006. That scrutiny is clearly extending beyond the sports niche. It is John Ourand who usually covers sports media at Puck. Byers\u2019 primary beat is news media, and over the past year almost exclusively the inner workings of CBS News. It is, to say the least, atypical for there to be a heavily-sourced story about ESPN from a reporter who usually covers the news media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The relationship between Joe Buck and Troy Aikman has been strained for weeks \u2014 and maybe longer \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,50687,398,396,397,30571,30572,99],"class_list":["post-890780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-monday-night-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nfl-on-abc","tag-nfl-on-espn","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890780","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=890780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}