Troy Aikman just finished off his first year with ESPN and it appears he rubbed a ton of people the wrong way.
After leaving FOX for ESPN, Aikman allegedly “dogged” the ESPN crew following mistakes that he made in the opening weeks of the season. It’s all laid out in a report from Awful Announcing which stems from his anger with the telestrator.
Here’s what one crew member on Monday Night Football had to say about the hall-of-fame quarterback.
“It all started week one,” a contractor on the Monday Night Football crew told Awful Announcing. “He was dogging the crew and gear on the air when he couldn’t figure his telestrator out. He couldn’t figure it out because he shows up on game day. Didn’t practice. So before halftime, our director had already gotten operations to call someone at Fox, find out exactly what model he used for years prior, and had it shipped in for the next game.”
Aikman and Joe Buck made their debuts as the lead broadcasters for MNF last season and everything seemed to go according to plan, at least from the fans’ perspective as they were widely praised on social media.
Another source told the publication that they were upset over Aikman flying on a private jet which further adds to him not knowing many members of the crew.
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“Troy travels on his private jet on Monday mornings and flies home after the game,” said a source. “He could not be further removed from the crew and I would confidently say that he knows maybe 10 people on a crew of like 150+ people.”
“Never came to a camera meeting. No crew outings. Nothing. You’d think someone who is going into a long-term, big-money contract at a new network would come in and try to make it home,” a separate source said.
When Aikman signed his huge deal with ESPN, it was to call games alongside Joe Buck just as they did for Fox Sports. That is exactly what he did. If he chooses not to get to know co-workers, that is on him and he doesn’t have to.
For all we know, Aikman was the same way at Fox but nobody came out to complain about it.
