Romo likely in line for rich TV deal

WASHINGTON If Tony Romo were to turn his well-earned reputation as the NFL’s Nostradamus inward, he would see a future dotted with historically enormous paycheques, one clouded by only the name of the payer.

Romo, who has earned virtually nothing but kudos for his performance in CBS’s NFL booth, is about to become a free agent and reports continue to filter in about the kind of loot he is going to make.

Whatever the final amount, he seems certain to become the highest-paid sports broadcaster in history, with Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reporting ESPN was preparing to offer him an annual salary in the US$10 million-$14 million neighbourhood to leave CBS. And Andrew Marchand of the New York Post also reported Sunday that ESPN was expected to go “all in” for Romo.

For any network but especially for ESPN and Disney, for whom an outlay like that would be mere couch change, the investment would be worth it. ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecasts (which air on TSN in Canada) have struggled, at least from an esoteric if not monetary point of view, since Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden departed. The Jason Witten experiment failed badly and while Booger McFarland has been an improvement, the broadcast team (with Joe Tessitore) hasn’t clicked with viewers.

With NBC’s Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth and Fox’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman set, signing Romo would make sense if ESPN hopes to move into the Sunday afternoon market with games on ABC and Romo filling other roles on the cable network as well. Romo is in the last year of a three-year contract that pays him around US$4 million annually and Front Office Sports reports that CBS has the right to match ESPN’s offer. By comparison, John Madden, during his heyday in the 1990s, made US$8 million a year, about US$14 million in today’s dollars.