NFL broadcaster silly season is in full effect. By the time we get to Week 1 of the 2022 season, you can expect to see a different team calling marquee games on every network except CBS.
Silly season got even sillier last week when news broke that longtime Fox play-by-play man Joe Buck has agreed to join his friend and broadcast partner Troy Aikman in the Monday Night Football booth at ESPN.
WFAN’s Evan Roberts offered his reaction to the news, saying that Buck’s decision to be the voice of MNF over continuing to call postseason baseball is a sign of how far baseball has fallen.
“This actually makes me sad. This shows you where baseball is,” Roberts told co-host Craig Carton on Carton & Roberts. “The reason I say that is because Joe Buck is the face and the voice of World Series baseball… Whether you like him or not, he’s the voice of baseball.”
Roberts continued, saying that it’s just going to be different hearing a new voice in October.
“I’m sure there are other things to go with (the reported ESPN deal), but he’s given up being the voice of the World Series,” Roberts said. “And I get it, it’s a huge paycheck and money should win out, and good for him. But this guy, for a generation, has been the man calling every big World Series moment. And he just said, ‘Eh, Monday Night Football matters more.’”
Carton offered a rebuttal to that sentiment, saying that even though a Monday World Series game would easily draw better viewership numbers than a regular season Monday NFL game, football is the most popular sport in the nation. And the thought of perhaps having a lighter workload at ESPN in addition to being in the booth with Aikman probably made the decision pretty easy for Buck.
“But I think we can all accept the fact that the NFL has become America’s pastime,” Carton said. “It’s surpassed baseball.”