OT: ESPN wants to trade for Al Michaels to pair with Peyton Manning on MNF
My reaction to this tweet: Wut?
What does ESPN have that NBC could want? NBC has, in Mike Tirico, a perfect guy to slide into the SNF seat that Michaels would vacate in this scenario. They have a smaller portfolio, and other than the SNF football product, nothing that is high-profile enough to require a significant upgrade in announcing talent that they couldn't just get by giving a pay raise to a mid-level network guy.
I saw one guy tweet that the main asset ESPN can offer is to take on the salary hit. So if NBC is looking to cut costs, this would be a good way to do it. But what else is there?
Between this and their flirtation with signing Tony Romo, it's clear that ESPN is desperate to upgrade their MNF booth. It is their premier broadcast, and while I like Joe Tess, neither he nor Sean McDonough have brought any real benefit to the booth. And the different color options have been mediocre at best, disasters at worst.
So, what's the play here? Are we talking about screen talent, or is ESPN going to offer something unique? Say, its ACC broadcast rights or something, allowing NBC to show more ND games? What would NBC even want?
I don't see how this works out. But it could be fun to watch happen.
Basically the NFL told ESPN to upgrade their booth talent if they ever want a super bowl. The first attempt was to get Romo. Romo used that flirtation for a ridiculous pay raise from CBS. So now I guess they think Micheals is an upgrade over Tess. Maybe, but Al is starting to sound his age and I think is about done.
They have to replace Booger. He is awful. He talks so fast. Like he's afraid the mic will get shut off before he can finish. Last year was worse with him and Witten. They had Booger on that contraption on the sidelines, although I would like to drive it around, and he would compete with Witten for input.
Do you have a source on that NFL info? It's very believable, I just haven't heard about that.
Whenever Michaels retires, there will be a flurry of plaudits and a number of people calling him the best announcer of all time. He has been, throughout his career, excellent; he may have lost a few mph off of his fastball, but he's not in retirement-year Keith Jackson territory. He would bring enormous weight to the ESPN broadcast, at least on a reputational level. Nobody has called more big events in more sports than Michaels, whose Miracle on Ice call just got replayed a bunch more this year 40 years after the event.
ESPN doesn't have a top-line guy like that. They have talented guys (Dan Shulman is as good as it gets, for example, but he isn't a football guy and has deliberately reduced his ESPN workload) but no A-listers. Nobody that, if you heard their voice calling an NFL game, you know it's a big deal.
Tirico was that guy until they let him go.
I do not have a source. Just what I've heard listening to different sports radio.
Tirico would jump at SNF. He'd leave the ND broadcast in a hot second. He was on the Dan Dakich show a while back and said that he left because ESPN does not give him a chance to do the olympics and that was his dream.
Just what I've heard listening to different sports radio.
Could be. Good enough for me, has a very plausible ring to it.
Tirico is surely the next man up at SNF. He's really, really good at what he does.
Tirico is great. I hate that he calls ND games. Living in the Indianapolis area, there are a lot of ND fans here. They hate him and Flutie, because they all think they hate ND. I think the problem is, those two call the game straight and are not over the top homers like previous NBC guys.
The worst kept secret in sports media is that Disney wants to grab a better NFL package when the NFL rights expire in 2022. And to make themselves more attractive to the NFL they are doing all they can to upgrade all aspects of their NFL coverage -- including their MNF booth. They want to get into the Super Bowl rotation and put that game on ABC and likely do some sort of Megacast treatment for their Monday night games. Main game on ABC, and Megacast on the ESPN and ESPN2.
I don’t know the answer, but ESPN is desperate and they should be. They struck temporary gold with Gruden and Tirico but otherwise the MNF crew has been bad with a lot of turnover. It was painful to listen to last season.
I’m sure Peyton would have insightful commentary but listening to his voice is cringeworthy.
No thanks. Peyton is besties with that Poppa Johns n-word dropping asshole.
We’ve come a long way since Howard Cowell and Frank Griffith, those guys were hammered by the end of those games which was usually the only reason to keep watching boring/blowout games.
Poppa John’s pizza sucks.
Frank Gifford? He got hammered during games? Proof, please.
Cowell and Griffith were hammered? I think you are hammared right now.
Who the fuck is Howard Cowell? Any relation to Simon?
I actually think Eli would make a pretty good broadcaster. I know he doesn't have the reputation his brother does, but when he's been given the opportunity to be himself, he's pretty funny and definitely wittier than Peyton, although I'd have to imagine the way Peyton could break down a game would be appealing to watch.
Maybe ESPN should have kept Tirico. Seems odd they'd let him go to NBC then a few years later try to get Al Michaels. I mean, NBC signed Tirico to become Michael's replacement so they must have felt Michaels was on his way out. Why ESPN would let Tirico go then try to get the old guy he's set to replace is just, confusing.
Romo wasn't the best QB in football. He's a good broadcaster because he's a good broadcaster. Peyton brings name recognition, but there's no way of knowing how good he'll be at color commentary until he does it. He could be a total stiff, relaying platitudes as Michaels awkwardly gives him mic time. Or he could combine some of his "liquored-up kicker" snark with Romo-like insight into what's really happening on the field and be great from the get-go.
Being a good player or coach is different than being a good broadcaster. They get lots of players and coaches to do commentary, but most of the commentary we get is incredibly dumbed down. It's an entirely different skill to make that stuff accessible to the listener. Romo works in part because he's smart and he's not afraid to let those smarts out on camera, and he is easy to listen to.
Did you mean to reply to me? Because what you responded with was not anything I brought up. I have no idea how Peyton will be. I could see him being really good and I could see him being pretty bad. None of us really know until we see/hear him.
Not really sure what anything you said had to do with why ESPN let Tiricho go or how Eli could potentially be a good broadcaster.
Have you listened much to Romo, makes it sound like he was the GOAT when playing in Dallas! This is been one of the horrible things about being in Boston and watching Pats games the past few years, we get Romo nearly every week. By the time you get the 3rd or 4th or more game of him, you realize how much he sucks. I'd rather listen to Collinsworth as painful as that can be, than Romo.
BRING BACK DENNIS MILLER, YOU COWARDS!
Peyton Manning in the booth would be another reason not to watch MNF.
Amen. Even 30 second commercials have contain 28 seconds more Payton Manning than I can tolerate without getting annoyed.
Agreed. No denying Peyton was great, but his voice bugs me.
Still astounding to me that ESPN let SNF get away.
It's not that they let SNF get away, the problem is that they let the NFL move the showcase game from Monday to Sunday, and NBC got to broadcast it. Now, SNF is the big game the whole league wants to watch, always featuring the Patriots or Cowboys or whoever else is big and popular, and Monday night has nothing special about it.
These Guys Have All the Fun, that ESPN oral history book, has the details. If I remember, ABC Sports and ESPN were not yet combined, so the two weren't really aligned on strategy, so they ended up with the situation they're now in and regretting it.
If I remember right it wasn't so much that they let the NFL move the showcase from Monday to Sunday, its that the people doing the negotiations for ESPN didn't quite understand the implications of giving up their Sunday Night Football package to get the Monday Night package on ESPN. By giving that up and sliding SNF to MNF it opened up the door for NBC to come in to grab the Sunday night game. And then NBC turned that into the premiere game of the week.
So now ESPN will be firing back with the big Disney wallet to fix that mistake and get back into the mix, or they will just jack up the price for FOX, CBS, and NBC to retain their rights packages and make things financially difficult for them. Ideally ESPN would like to just outbid FOX or CBS for their entire package of games.
All four networks pay right around a billion a year for their NFL rights. ESPN pays a little more because its also buying the rights to use NFL footage on Sportscenter, NFL Live, etc. The NFL also gets $1.5B a year from DirecTV for Sunday Ticket. With ESPN+ up and running and Disney in general going heavy on streaming, don't be surprised if ESPN doesn't come in with like a $3.5B offer to take both a premiere package and DirecTV's Sunday Ticket rights to stream any game on ESPN+.
CBS shelling out $17M a year to keep Tony Romo is just a taste of what's to come when the real bidding for rights begins. Will be a REAL interesting year in negotiations.
Mostly replying to say great book as Burgers has the details well covered below (IIRC anyway).
To me the dumbest part about it is that Sunday night is the bigger ratings opportunity always and everyone knew that going in.
Monday Night Football is bad because people can watch whatever NFL games they want now instead of one or two that are broadcast for the week when it started. Now all that is left is typically a really bad matchup televised at a really inconvenient day and time for working parents and young fans alike. They can keep putting a football game on Monday at 8:30 PM, but it is never going to be Monday Night Football again. It doesn't matter who calls the game. Dolphins v. Bengals is always going to suck.
I heard that they are looking at a flex schedule for Monday night beginning a couple of years from now where they get to pick the games starting at some point in the season. That could save it.
I am already so sick of hearing Payton Manning because of all his commercials. Plus, he's a horse's rear. If he joins MNF, that's a hard pass for me.
I can honestly say that I have never watched or not watched a game because of who is in the booth. I'm either interested in the game or I'm not.
Now if Beth Mowins is on the call, I will turn it down because he voice is like fingernails on a chalk board.
I will personally watch any game that Bill Walton calls. Sometimes I find myself watching awful Pac-12 basketball at midnight just to hear Bill compare a fast break to the Dead's virtuoso performance of Cumberland Blues in 1972.
Wait, people didn't like Booger McFarland?
Did someone say booger?
Michaels was traded for Oswald the lucky Rabbit before, which is how NBC ended up getting him for SNF. He's 75 so probably doesn't have many years left, but he's still the best in the game and would fill a huge hole in ESPN's NFL coverage. Outside the season, ESPN would put him to better use than NBC currently does (if he wants to work that, of course). ABC/ESPN hasn't had a big name/voice like his in a long time. It would be good to have, if NBC will let him go.
TIL that announcers can get traded.
I wonder if my employer can trade me. Hopefully to Popeye's. Those chicken sandwiches are amazing.
Shoot - this would be the second trade of Al Michaels in his career (if this happened)!
Ernie Harwell was traded once back in the day too.
I propose a trio that everyone loves
Al Michaels and Manning would be the perfect combo, but ESPN will never land Michaels. Michaels might be towards the end of his career, but he is still the greatest sports announcer ever. ESPN has nothing to trade for Michaels, and NBC will match any offer ESPN could possibly make.
This all seems like a non-starter. Michaels is the GOAT. You dont trade or lose the GOAT.
You better forward that statement to Bill Belichick!!
I thought Peyton got into the music writing business
My sources say that Stephen A. Smith is on the table. This is not a commentary on a potential trade, just that SAS is literally on a table right now.
CBS: Romo and Nantz
NBC: Tirico and Collinsworth
ESPN: Michaels and Manning
Fox: Buck and Aikman
Those are 4 solid broadcast teams.
Joe Buck sucks!
ESPN is trying too hard. Monday Night Football is still a fairly good package of NFL games, but it simply isn't what it once was and I doubt it ever will be again.
Even if they would have gotten Tony Romo (or do get Al Michaels or Manning), that's not going to change. Sunday Night is the premier NFL time slot now, then the 4:25 (ET) games, then Thursday and Monday Night are kind of tied, then the 1:00 games.
They are probably sick of people making fun of Booger and Tess though.
Yeah, this and paying Romo that much is all weird to me. These are single weekly games that would get huge ratings if they didn’t have announcers. I def have announcers I don’t like and ones I do, but I’m watching the game regardless. I can’t imagine anyone not watching a game at all based on the announcers. Even on mute, you are still watching.
The Giffer, Howard and Dandy Don are looking down on MNF from heaven and the only response they have is Meredith singing "turn out the lights the party is over" in terms of current broadcast. MNF was the best prime time sports program ever at its peak, now ESPN has turned into a joke.
Peyton’s SNL stuff showed on-air potential but it remains to be seen if he can flow with a game and be a good broadcaster. He’s a funny guy who definitely has the gift of gab. And his knowledge of the game is obviously vast. I’d tune in to see for sure.
This would only be made official after the Olympics. No way Michaels is missing Tokyo.