Nobody Cares Enough About Troy Aikman To Be Worth His ESPN Deal
If you haven’t heard by now, Troy Aikman is leaving Fox Sports to join ESPN. The deal with ESPN is worth $90 million over the next five years. I’m not sure if anybody wants to tell ESPN this, but it’s the truth. Nobody cares enough about Aikman for him to be worth that much money.
A: Football is the main attraction. Fans don’t buy tickets to a baseball game to watch an ump show. Nobody goes to the doctor just so they can get a lollipop at the end of the visit. 99.9 percent of the people watching the football game, want to watch the football game or are being forced to watch. Aikman is not the star of the show.
B: Aikman isn’t even really that good at broadcasting. I could understand wanting to win a bidding war for Chris Berman or John Madden. The only reason people care about Aikman is what he did while playing quarterback for the Cowboys. Nobody ever gets blown away by what he says in the booth.
Please tell me; what does Aikman bring to the table? Is it inside information like what JJ Redick dropped? Nope. With Romo, he’s constantly calling out stuff pre-snap and educating fans. Aikman doesn’t even have a funny catch phrase to make him stand out. He’s just there.
I understand that ESPN stinks at this whole hiring this. Yes, there is no question the trio of Grease, Riddick, and Levy was awful. Aikman will probably actually be an upgrade somehow. I get spending top dollar for top tier talent is worth it. There is just no chance Aikman is impacting any Monday Night Football ratings while he’s there. No chance.
