‘MNF’ announcer Joe Buck agrees to contract extension with ESPN
Joe Buck will call his seventh Super Bowl in February. It will be his first with ESPN — and, it turns out, won’t be his last.
The “Monday Night Football” play-by-play announcer and the network agreed to a six-year, $108-million extension, according to the Athletic. Buck’s deal was set to expire following this season.
Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium will be broadcast on ESPN and simulcast on Disney sister network ABC. It will be the first Super Bowl on ESPN and the first on ABC since Super Bowl XL, which followed the 2005 season. The game is scheduled to rotate back to ESPN/ABC in February 2031.
While Buck seems locked in for that Super Bowl LXV broadcast, his longtime booth partner may not be — at least not yet. The Athletic reports that color commentator Troy Aikman remains unsigned beyond this season.
When asked about the contract situations for Buck and Aikman, an ESPN spokesperson directed The Times to a statement executive vice president of communications Josh Krulewitz gave to the Athletic.
“With this historic season for ESPN now underway, our entire focus is on bringing fans the best possible football coverage, culminating with our first Super Bowl,” Krulewitz said. “To that end, we won’t be addressing talent contract specifics publicly before the Super Bowl.”
Buck broke into broadcasting in 1989, calling games for the Louisville Redbirds, a minor-league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years later, he joined his father, Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Jack Buck, in the radio and TV booths for the Cardinals’ games.
In 1994, Buck was hired by Fox Sports. He eventually became the network’s top play-by-play voice for the NFL and MLB, calling 24 World Series and six Super Bowls for the network. Buck joined his father in the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2022.
Buck and Aikman have been calling football games together since 2002 and left Fox for ESPN together before the 2022 season. Last season, “Monday Night Football” averaged 15.8 million viewers per game, the second-best ratings in ESPN’s 20 seasons of broadcasting the franchise (it averaged 17.4 viewers in 2023).