The Walt Disney Company has been hit hard by Covid-19. The economic impact of the pandemic has been felt in every sector of the company. At ESPN, in addition to furloughs for some employees and pay cuts for executives and top tier talent, the effect has shown up in how the network is moving forward with one of its most valuable sports properties.
In a new column for Front Office Sports, Michael McCarthy reports that the days of offering Peyton Manning an eight-figure annual paycheck are over. The network is instead looking exclusively at internal talent to fill the Monday Night Football play-by-play booth.
“When you’re asking your top 100 people to take a haircut, how can you go out and pay Kurt Warner $5 million? That would be a very tough sell,” a source told McCarthy.
ESPN has declined to officially comment about the futures of current play-by-play man Joe Tessitore, color analyst Booger McFarland, and sideline reporter Lisa Saunders. Still, McCarthy reports that four different names have emerged as favorites for the Monday Night broadcasts in 2020. They are announcer Steve Levy, former NFL executive Louis Riddick, and two current college football analysts, Dan Orlovsky, who spent 13 years in the NFL with 5 different teams, and Pat McAfee, who was the Colts’ punter for 8 years.
“There’s no money to pay anybody,” the same source said. “So the move now is: Who do we have already on the payroll who can do this job?”
The network almost certainly wants to eliminate the pattern of musical chairs the Monday Night Football booth has fallen into. Still, it is unclear if any changes for 2020 would be for the long-term or if ESPN might consider rekindling its pursuit of big name talent in the future.