(“I haven’t got anything to say about football anymore.”) That fall, Meredith was calling games for NBC with a 400 percent raise. In 1974, Don Meredith left Monday Night after pleading exhaustion with his partner Howard Cosell and the job more generally. In 2002, John Madden moved from Fox to ABC’s Monday Night Football. 1 NFL announcer left a network, it was almost always because the announcer got fired or saw the network’s rights deal change. It’s hard to describe how strange it would be for Aikman and Buck to change jobs. This fall, Aikman, Romo, and Collinsworth will make nearly $50 million combined-at least $30 million more than they made five years ago. Fox’s Joe Buck (who could jump to ESPN) and Al Michaels (formerly of NBC but going to Amazon or maybe ESPN) will soon join them. In the last year, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth (at a reported $12.5 million per year) and CBS’s Jim Nantz ( $10.5 million) negotiated contracts that are probably among the richest ever signed, even adjusting for inflation. But they almost obscure how much richer every no. Romo was the highest-paid sports announcer in history until two weeks ago, when Fox’s Troy Aikman moved to ESPN for $18 million per year. Two years ago, CBS’s Tony Romo got a raise from about $3 million per year to more than $17 million. If you look at the way announcers are switching networks and negotiating new deals, you can see just how much their bosses are giving away. But the balance of power between management and talent has changed. There aren’t many broadcasting Michael Jordans who are squaring off with network Jerry Krauses. Call it the announcer empowerment era.Īnnouncer empowerment probably won’t be quite as riveting as player empowerment. NFL quarterbacks would recognize the perks. In the last two years-and especially in the past two weeks-a handful of football announcers have gotten massive raises, new mobility, and an acknowledgement that they can basically do whatever the hell they want. The producer was dumbfounded by the way his corner of the TV industry has changed. “It’s a fucking mystery to me,” one NFL producer said this week.
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