So, Cris Collinsworth haters, today is not your day. According to Andrew Marchand’s reporting for The Athletic, Collinsworth and NBC are closing in on an upgraded deal that will bind the NFL analyst to the network and its Sunday Night Football broadcasts through the 2029 season, including NBC’s ownage of the Super Bowl in early 2030.
That’s quite a while to contemplate how much Collinsworth drives you crazy, assuming you are somehow in that mix. I’ve never understood the antipathy, but to each his own.
And that is actually the news here, that thing about finding an analyst to love — or at least not to hate. Because the Collinsworth deal appears to solidify the NFL’s top broadcasting crews for a long, long time to come.
If you love having new choices and fresh perspectives to consider, here’s hoping you packed a lunch. It could be a wait.
With Collinsworth in place (a formal announcement hasn’t yet been made), the No. 1 announcing booths at the NFL’s major-exposure destinations are fairly locked in, and the analysts in particular. Here’s a breakdown, which assumes that public reporting on the contracts is solid:
FOX — Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady, with Brady signed through 2033 season.
CBS — Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, with Romo signed through 2030 season.
ESPN — Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, with Aikman signed through 2027 season.
NBC — Mike Tirico and Collinsworth, with Collinsworth now set through 2029 season.
The league’s Thursday Night Football destination, Amazon’s Prime Video, may be the forerunner of many streaming days to come, and its deal with the league runs through 2033, but for now it remains an outlier. Al Michaels handles play by play and Kirk Herbstreit the color/analysis.
While the length of Herbstreit’s deal is unclear, Michaels’ contract expires after this season, so that booth feels subject to change. But across the four majors, the landscape is stable. That’s either the good or bad news, depending on how you feel about each analyst.
Collinsworth’s pending upgrade is noteworthy in that it sort of seals off those top analyst jobs. After a couple of years of change and some alphabet-jumping by big names, there’s a settling occurring now.
Collinsworth’s deal will take him to his age-70 season. Beyond him, the oldest analyst in the group is Aikman at 57. Unless someone becomes deeply unhappy with his setup, these are the guys you’ll be choosing among for years to come.
That is very okay with the NFL, by the way. When it comes to its production and distribution to American consumers, the league doesn’t love change. It doesn’t mind innovation, so long as said innovation makes the league look better and not worse, but disruption in the broadcast booth isn’t the owners’ favorite thing.
After Buck-Aikman made their move to ESPN and Brady finally took the job that FOX had been holding for him, the only real possibility of a future No. 1 analyst opening — for, say, Greg Olsen, who was displaced by Brady, or perhaps a top coach who soon becomes ready to switch professions — appeared to be with NBC.
That was only because Collinsworth’s existing contract was up after the 2026 season. This latest negotiation nixes that idea. It also likely upgrades Collinsworth’s business portfolio, as he undoubtedly will receive a raise beyond the $12.5 million annually that Marchand reports he’s currently earning with NBC.
If there’s a wild card left in this field — that is, beyond the Amazon Prime situation, which was always going to be a little fluid with Michaels in the mix — it’s simply the possibility that Tom Brady gets going, likes broadcasting but doesn’t love it, and ultimately does not complete the 10 years on his contract.
But that’s just A.) so far down the road, and B.) purely speculative. These jobs are coveted for a reason that goes beyond the money. They’re prime-exposure windows, and thus an NFL-themed influencer’s dream.
They turn over slowly, these seats; once filled, they tend to stay that way. Collinsworth and NBC are about to reinforce that reality. How you feel about it, while completely up to you, won’t change a thing – and again, change is never the goal around here.
Mark Kreidler is a national award-winning writer whose work has appeared at ESPN, the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and dozens of other publications. He’s also a sports-talk veteran with stops in San Francisco and Sacramento, and the author of three books, including the bestselling “Four Days to Glory.” More of his writing can be found at https://markkreidler.substack.com. He is also reachable on Twitter @MarkKreidler.
