Joe Buck, the longtime voice of Fox Sports, is pushing for the greener pastures of ESPN, signing a lucrative five-year deal in the $60-$75 million range, by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post.
Buck has been the voice of the World Series since the turn of the millennium, calling every World Series game back to the 2000 Subway Series. They all feature Joe Buck’s soundtrack. His candlelight is indistinguishable from baseball’s biggest showcase. Generations of baseball fans don’t know what’s different. He called his first World Series in 1996 and worked for Fox Sports for nearly 30 years. With Fox, Buck had a year left with $11 million on his contract, and the network allowed him to sign the deal early, according to the New York Post.
Buck is also Fox’s top NFL commentator, as the network will be tasked with replacing its top football, baseball and golf commentator.
Buck is expected to become the voice of Monday Night Football for ESPN, reunited with longtime colleagues and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Aikman hit it off late last month when he was said to have agreed to $92.5 million over five years.
Who stepped up to the Bucks’ position? While Fox may be trying to gain a big broadcast name against the loss of one of the industry’s giants, it has a phenomenal selection already in the home of Gus Johnson, who also has help in the football coverage of the network as they have had major rights to the UEFA Champions League and USMNT games over the past decade.
Johnson and Joel Klatt are currently Fox’s #1 college football commentary team, and although Klatt has no experience calling anything other than football, his chemistry with Johnson is truly undeniable. . For my money, they’re the best Saturdays call-to-action team, making Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff truly special.
Fox already has an extensive list of baseball commentators if Klatt doesn’t want to try his hand at baseball, with Tom Verducci a good choice to go with Johnson if he is the choice. Kevin Burkhardt or Adam Amin would also be good options to get the World Series’ first play-by-play performance with the network if it weren’t for the move to Johnson.
Buck’s departure from Fox to become a competitor comes at an interesting time. As an avid fan of one of Fox’s most popular shows, Masked singer, my first impression prediction for the person wearing the “Ram” costume was Buck from the premiere of season four. No matter which celebrity has passed their first performance of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me”. Buck is clearly not a trained singer, despite having a polished voice. The clues match and the voice matches him. Buck could say he outlasted the singing competition than pastry chef Duff Goldman, if that was him.
Buck’s move to ESPN puts him on larger regular-season football assignments, with no competition for most of the game, even though he’s handing the mic over to someone else for the biggest baseball assignment around. around. Get paid more to do the same style of work and potentially free up his schedule more, as he’s also expected to contribute to ESPN+ projects instead of calling for sports. another sport, is a win for Buck in every sense.
