Joe Buck explains leaving Fox for ESPN was a “quality of life move”
"They didn’t want me to go. They have a Super Bowl this year."
"They didn’t want me to go. They have a Super Bowl this year."
"I got a problem with why there hasn’t been to this point, a Black analyst on a major primetime broadcast."
"When I had to speak to both of those guys separately when they both had officially left, oh God I cried."
Al Michaels closed his tenure on NBC by calling the Super Bowl, Joe Buck said goodbye to Fox by appearing on the Masked Singer.
"I just wanted to take a sec to tell you how excited, beyond excited, I am to come to ESPN and to get to do Monday Night Football."
The pair will also contribute to ESPN+ in some capacity.
Fox has two of the next three Super Bowls, so their pick matters.
“I would love to do it. I think it’s a fun gig. It keeps you in the game,” Cutler said. “If an opportunity arises, I would jump at it.”
"When negotiations couldn’t reach, what I felt was fair value, I was able to negotiate an opt-out after six months which allowed me to be a free agent. ...Then Fox never jumped into the game. They never made an offer. I didn’t have any conversations with Fox, until I got a call to congratulate me on my new deal."
"I've got another year under contract at Fox...They also know that was a big partnership that I had with Troy."
"Does Fox want to keep Joe if Joe's going to be unhappy? No. But do they want to be able to monetize this in myriad ways in order to really get some flesh out of ESPN? Absolutely."
Richard Deitsch of The Athletic reports that Fox management is high on Olsen, and that he's the "leading contender" for the No. 1 analyst job at this point, but with much still up in the air.