The world recently found out the hard way that salary contracts in the sports industry are not only a thing for players and coaches. Sports analyst Tony Romo has just been publicly offered the largest sports analyst contract in TV history – and the public is not happy about it.
Since Romo’s old contract with CBS was up, he was getting all geared up to become a free analyst agent and see how much the world would offer him. But after getting word that ESPN was ready to aggressively bid for him, CBS entered the negotiations for a new contract with him prepared to sign on whatever number would keep Romo from making the switch.
The new contract has obligated CBS to pay Tony Romo around $17 million per season. That’s more than double the NFL’s previously highest analyst salary of $8 million for John Madden – which, by the way, was more than two decades ago – and still falls short even when inflation is accounted for.
Even during Romo’s playing career, his earnings totaled $127 million over 14 seasons; only 3 of his seasons as the Cowboys’ quarterback made him more than $17 million.
However, CBS (and Romo’s partner, Jim Nantz) has been praised from all angles ever since its network executives took a chance on Romo, putting him in the booth as an analyst as soon as he left the field three years ago.
Word on the street is that ESPN might give the new success tactic a try by calling Peyton Manning and making a similar offer. But there’s no telling if he’ll say yes – or how far the impact of this new arrangement will go in the industry.
Less successful is the response the new deal got from the NFL community – from fans to players themselves, cynicism is not being held back on the Twitter field…
Here are some choice responses so far.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>So tight the ppl who actually play the game and put their body on the line, are dreaming to be a able to get a deal like the people who sit down and just explain to the audience what we just did on the field lol so fresh</p>— Tony Jefferson II (@_tonyjefferson) <a href=”https://twitter.com/_tonyjefferson/status/1233786208037167110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Hold on <a href=”https://twitter.com/DariusJButler?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@dariusjbutler</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/tonyromo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@tonyromo</a> got how much?? I’m with ya bro I’ll cover the guys Inside the trenches <a href=”https://twitter.com/3rd_down_inches?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@3rd_down_inches</a> …Hello Somebody <br><br> I’m ready to work 🗣💰 <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/tonyromochallenge?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#tonyromochallenge</a> <a href=”https://t.co/RD8rYjBsbP”>pic.twitter.com/RD8rYjBsbP</a></p>— Marlon Favorite (@bigfav504) <a href=”https://twitter.com/bigfav504/status/1233825084982337543?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Im done playin football! I just wanna be an announcer now 😂😂😂</p>— Odell Beckham Jr (@obj) <a href=”https://twitter.com/obj/status/1233833537159208960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
But then of course, there’s this ever so slightly relevant statistic…
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Do you watch games more when Tony Romo is announcing?</p>— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) <a href=”https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1233592808948355084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
What are your thoughts?