Sixteen years ago, the great Al Michaels vowed to never work for a four-letter network. Multiple eight-figure deals later for a variety of NFL broadcasters, ESPN could end up becoming a much more viable option for Al’s services.
Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports that, if ESPN can’t pry Joe Buck away from Fox to continue his collaboration with Troy Aikman (Buck has one year left on his deal), ESPN likely will pivot to Michaels.
Aikman reportedly was Michaels’s first choice as game analyst at Amazon, for Thursday Night Football. With Aikman off the table, Michaels has to decide whether to target another partner or to jump to ESPN.
With more of the Monday night games landing on ABC, and with ABC back in the Super Bowl rotation, the job is inherently more attractive than it was when Al passed on the opportunity to slide from Monday nights on ABC to Monday nights on ESPN in 2006. Throw in Aikman and the money ESPN/ABC will throw at Michaels (not to mention the difference in audience size between ESPN/ABC and Amazon), maybe that’s the move Al makes.
