As the start of the revamped Monday Night Football broadcasts on ESPN draws closer, the anticipation to get started is steadily growing as Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Lisa Salters – take the reins as the voices of Monday night.
“When we were white-boarding our ultimate booth shortly after the regular season, Troy and Joe were at the top of that list for all of us,” said ESPN Head of Event and Studio Production Stephanie Druley. “For me, they are simply the best team out there. Their chemistry, their love of the game and the high standard they set for themselves [is what] I think… makes them an incredible team.”
Buck and Aikman grew up watching Monday Night Football when Pat Summerall and John Madden brought fans the action, but viewed the game from very different perspectives. While Aikman was envisioning becoming a professional football player, Buck was striving to follow in his father Jack’s footsteps as a professional broadcaster. In fact, his father called the Monday night games with Hank Stram, albeit on the CBS Radio Network. Two doors down though, the team of Frank Gifford, Don Meredith and Howard Cosell was indicative of a media spectacle to Buck, and something he has always wanted to do.
Before landing the job as the new voice of Monday Night Football, Buck was the lead play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports on both its football and baseball broadcasts, getting the chance to call several Super Bowl and World Series games, along with other marquee matchups. In this new stage of his career, Buck figures to be an active member of ESPN and will appear across its programming and select ABC shows. He will be keeping the play-by-play to football, as he does not have a desire to return to calling baseball games but will instead focus on serving in a producer role for upcoming projects.
“I think I’m pretty good with just calling football [for] the rest of my life or the rest of my career,” Buck said, “which hopefully doesn’t turn into the rest of my life.”
ESPN was content with its previous Monday Night Football booth of Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Brian Griese, but considers Buck, Aikman and Salters to be an upgrade. In landing the booth it has, the network is eager to see the product come Week 1 and hopes it leads to the league scheduling even better matchups for the broadcast in the years to come.
“These guys deserve a certain level of game, and the expectation is that the league sees that as well and we will reap the benefit of that,” Druley said. “We have an incredible schedule this year, and I do think that the booth matters in the amount of quality you’re going to get.”
Being the only football game on television each week presents a unique opportunity for this broadcast to stand out among the others and continue to make it appointment viewing for football fans. Akin to how he took center stage as a Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Aikman is ready to be in primetime with Buck, his longtime broadcast partner, to his left.
“To be at ESPN where it’s the only game on their network and the pride that they have in this property and what they are willing to do to make [it] a success and what it means in this portfolio of events is something that we’ve never experienced,” Aikman said. “….We’ve been with ESPN now for several months and we keep waiting. Now it’s finally here and it’s really exciting.”
The emphasis on just how special and revered these broadcasts are is hardly hyperbole, according to Buck, as he affirms it represents a preeminent broadcast property in the history of football broadcasts and live game broadcasts in general for that matter. Now as the opening broadcasts draws closer, Buck and his colleagues expect to bring fans a stellar product and when the moment they have been waiting for finally comes, it will symbolize the gravity and allure distinct to Monday Night Football.
“I think when that theme song hits, I’ll get chills,” Buck said. “….For people of a certain generation when you hear that theme song back in the day with the yellow jackets and the pomp and circumstance and the craziness that happens at Monday Night Football, it just has kind of always been something in my mind…. This is the pinnacle of being in any booth anywhere.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
