Six years, $108 million
Joe Buck will remain the voice of Monday Night Football through the start of the next decade. According to The Athletic, the broadcaster has signed a six-year extension with ESPN worth $108 million.
He was heading into the final year of a five-year, $75 million deal. That lifts his annual pay from around $15 million to $18 million. A 20 percent raise for a man who never gets near the ball.
ESPN’s logic goes beyond keeping a smooth voice in the booth. The network will air its first Super Bowl next February, then another in 2031. Both fall inside the new contract. Buck will call them.
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A career built for live TV
Buck is 57. He spent 27 years at Fox, from 1994 to 2021, before moving to ESPN. Six Super Bowls. Twenty-three World Series. Very few American broadcasters can match that kind of resume.
Longevity like that makes the audience feel at home. In the United States, the voice of the game ends up becoming part of the game. That’s what ESPN is paying for here, and it is about a lot more than technical skill.
Troy Aikman, the other issue
His booth partner has not signed anything yet. Troy Aikman’s five-year, $90 million contract runs out after Super Bowl LXI, scheduled for February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
The pair are starting their 25th season together. That makes them the longest-running commentary duo in NFL history, again according to The Athletic. Extending one without the other doesn’t solve much.
For ESPN, the thinking is obvious: lock up the most recognisable voice in American football before two home Super Bowls, then sort out the rest later. Aikman’s market value, meanwhile, keeps ticking up with every week that passes without a signature.
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