ESPN Lands Its Dream 'Monday Night Football' Booth With Joe Buck and Troy Aikman

After years of searching, ESPN has finally landed the marquee Monday Night Football booth it has been looking for. After already reeling in Troy Aikman on a huge deal, the four-letter has now landed the best play-by-play announcer in the business in Joe Buck.

The New York Post's Andrew Marchand is reporting Buck will leave Fox Sports for a massive deal at ESPN to become the new voice of Monday Night Football. He'll be rejoining Aikman, who has been his NFL broadcast partner for two decades.

From Marchand's article:

On Friday, Fox granted Buck permission to talk with ESPN, according to sources. A deal is expected to come to fruition shortly.

With Fox, Buck had one-year at $11 million remaining on his contract. Fox, though, is letting him out early as a good gesture for his years of service to the company. He is expected to sign a contract in the five-year, $60-$75 million range with ESPN, according to sources.

That's a ton of money for Buck after Aikman agreed to a five-year, $92.5 million deal. Buck will apparently be involved with other ESPN+ projects as well.

Buck has been with Fox since 1994, so virtually his entire professional life. He's been calling the World Series since 1996, so he's essentially been the voice of Major League Baseball in that time. This is a serious change and Fox will be left scrambling to replace its No. 1 NFL booth and top MLB play-by-play guy.

For ESPN, this is a major coup. The network has been attempting to create an elite MNF booth since Jon Gruden departed the broadcast in 2018. The network has attempted to lure big names like Peyton Manning and Tony Romo to the broadcast but to no avail. Now ESPN's top NFL offering has a broadcast team to reflect its importance. This is quite a coup for the network.