Joe Buck Jumps Networks

Play-by-play announcer goes to ESPN after being with Fox since the beginning
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 13, 2022 1:05 PM CDT
Joe Buck Jumps Networks
Joe Buck, left, and analyst Troy Aikman work in the broadcast booth before a preseason NFL football game in Miami Gardens, Fla., in 2019.   (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

Joe Buck, who's called games for Fox Sports since its launch in 1994, has a new network. The announcer will handle play-by-play for ESPN's Monday Night Football broadcasts, the network's only NFL game, USA Today reports. The move will keep intact the Buck-Troy Aikman team, Fox's lead football announcers for 20 years; Aikman was hired away by ESPN last month. "I'd love nothing more than to continue to work with him," Aikman said after his move.

Buck was just 25 when he started at Fox, becoming its lead baseball voice two years later and then its top football play-by-play announcer. He became the youngest announcer to call a full schedule of NFL games when he was 25, and the youngest to call a World Series when he was 27. In the fall, with Fox airing NFL games and MLB postseason games, it could seem that Buck was on television nearly every night, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This could mean Buck has called his last World Series, a job he's performed 24 times.

The ESPN deal is for five years and more than $60 million, per the New York Post. He had one year left on his Fox contract, which the network agreed to waive, for $11 million. His new deal includes handling projects for ESPN+, per the Post. Buck's wife, Michelle Beisner-Buck, is a reporter for ESPN, producing features that run before the Monday night game. She welcomed him aboard in a tweet, saying Mondays will now be "take your spouse to work" nights. (More Joe Buck stories.)

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