Legendary NFL quarterback turned broadcaster Troy Aikman was thrown in the mud last week after his first season in the booth with ESPN.
According to Awful Announcing, Aikman had some difficulties in Year 1 that included friction with the crew.
“After Awful Announcing wrote about Marchand’s comments, several people associated with Monday Night Football’s production team independently reached out to share their experience from the previous year and how they felt that the Platt/Dean swap-out was part of an ongoing friction between production crew and talent, with Aikman specifically cited in multiple instances,” they reported.
There were also reports of tensions between Troy Aikman and others forcing the network to make some changes. The Worldwide leader in sports recently announced changes to producer and director for the Monday Night Football broadcasts.
Andrew Marchand of The New York Post spoke on that news about why the change was made.
“It’s not fair to say that Troy Aikman or Joe Buck made this change, but there was a feeling from people close to the situation that Aikman wanted a different producer.”
However, Joe Buck says that stuff has been blown out of proportion.
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“Those decisions are made way above us,” Buck told The Post. “We are the new guys on the block. Those are assessed above where we sit. I’m proud about what we all did and where we are going.”
ESPN executive Stephanie Druley further denied the claims that Aikman played a part in the changes.
“We can say unequivocally this decision was made solely by me and our management team. Period,” Druley said. “These new assignments best position our overall football coverage for years to come and, to be clear, they were not dictated by any members of our on-air team.”
ESPN made major waves when they landed the broadcast team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman before the start of the 2022 NFL season. The network spent around $33 million to land the Buck-Aikman team from FOX before last season.
There weren’t any glaring issues from fans about the duo, so season 2 should be just as good as season one from the legendary crew.
