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By Richard Deitsch
Tony Romo would not reveal his hand. There was no tell, no overt indication of what he was thinking regarding his job status the following year. But I was struck by something he told me last December in the CBS broadcast booth at Gillette Stadium when I passed along a declaration that his broadcast partner Jim Nantz had made a couple of hours earlier. Nantz said he would not lobby Romo during the NFL season to stay with CBS long-term but he wanted more than anything to call a generation of games with Romo. He believed that if he and Romo got 15 years together, they could go down as one of the best NFL broadcasting teams of all time.
I relayed this story to Romo, which of course was an attempt to try to get Romo to give up something about his upcoming contract negotiations with CBS. At the time I embedded with this crew in December, Romo was still two months-plus away from the 30-day exclusive negotiating period that CBS had after the Super Bowl to sign him to a contract. If that period passed without Romo signing with CBS, he would be able to talk to other broadcast outlets.
“More than anything I love our team,” Romo said that day in Foxborough. “If I am lucky enough to work in this industry for 15 or 20 years, no one would not want to be with Jim Nantz forever. I know how talented he is and I also know how close a friend he is. That is something I feel lucky about, that I got to start my career with him. Really, that is a gift. I know how Jim feels. And I think he knows how I feel. We obviously appreciate each other’s friendship. Thinking 40 years from now, if I had been around someone who has done this for so long and at such a high level and who is also a close friend and also helps you and teaches you? That would make it more rewarding.”
I thought about that answer last week when word came down that CBS had signed Romo to a long-term deal that extends far beyond the current rights deal between CBS and the NFL (which expires after the 2022 season). The details of Romo’s contract were first reported by the New York Post and Sports Business Daily, with the Post reporting that CBS will pay the broadcaster in the neighborhood of $17 million per year, the highest annual salary ever for a sports broadcaster. I have since learned the contract goes beyond five years at a minimum, with provisions that can extend it.
There was significant motivation on the CBS side to get a deal done before Romo hit the open market. That urgency helped raise the price dramatically for Romo’s CAA group, led by agents Tom Young and R.J. Gonser. The deal was completed Friday afternoon and details broke shortly afterward.
The motivation for CBS was obvious: They wanted to signal loud and clear to the NFL (and the advertising community) that they are serious about extending their media partnership with the NFL. CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. merged last August to form a new company and NFL football will be critical to that business. The NFL’s media rights discussions are expected to commence sometime this year.
Is Romo worth it? The money does not seem as crazy when you step back and realize that CBS pays the NFL roughly $1 billion under the terms of its current deal, as well as $100 million in production costs to air NFL games. The Super Bowl budget for networks that air the game is believed to be around $25 million. ESPN alone is paying $1.9 billion for the NFL and $100 million for a playoff game. When you look at it in those terms, Romo’s salary is not crazy to lock up a significant talent on your most important television property. I’ve been on the record since 2017 that I consider Romo the best analyst in football and this will prove to be money well spent, I predict.
Given the record financials for a broadcast, there is no doubt that negotiation was a wild ride. Logic would suggest that Romo’s camp probably thought at times he would be heading into the open market, where ESPN was waiting.
Would ESPN have paid Romo more than $17 million annually had he hit the open market? Multiple ESPN sources said that the company would never have come close to that number. CBS Sports sources believe ESPN would have topped it. The question you have to ask is what price would ESPN put on changing two years of negative news about Monday Night Football, as well as signal to the NFL that it was serious about putting the best product out there among NFL-airing networks? It’s no secret that Disney/ESPN/ABC has designs on getting a bigger slice of the NFL pie including a Super Bowl. That’s why I don’t out of hand dismiss ESPN paying crazy money for Romo, despite that fact it would have blown up the company’s talent salary structure. (ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro has been shedding talent salaries over the past 12-18 months.)
If money was not a major factor in Romo’s decision, Romo would not be earning $17 million annually and Young and Gosner would not be able to buy their colleagues fancy dinners in Los Angeles for the next decade. It was clearly a factor. But there is also this: Romo and Nantz love working together, and Romo has said the same about the production team that producer Jim Rikhoff has assembled. Nantz and Romo were friends prior to their working arrangement and that friendship has since grown. Rikhoff is the only producer Romo has worked with in sports television. (That friendship was forged when Rikhoff made eight trips to Dallas before Romo called a single game.) Mike Arnold is the only director Romo has worked with. In contract talks with Romo, CBS undoubtedly highlighted the quality of its games in the 4:25 p.m. ET Sunday window over competitors, as well as viewership advantages (CBS’s national windows draw about 10 million more viewers than Monday Night Football), the comfort level of the crew, and that CBS is airing the Super Bowl this year. Tom Brewer, Romo’s longtime friend and now his traveling editorial consultant and spotter, had only great things to say about CBS when I spoke with him in December – and Romo trusts Brewer implicitly. Does that matter more than $17 million? Only Romo knows, and he politely declined comment this week via CBS Sports PR.
Rikhoff, in an interview on Sunday, said he learned of Romo’s ultimate decision on Friday shortly before it came public. (He did talk to Romo occasionally throughout the process but said he tried to stay away from Romo’s future.) He called Arnold and replay producer Ryan Galvin when he learned the news and later spoke with sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson, who was also overjoyed by Romo’s decision.“ I feel like this is a once in a generation crew obviously headed by Jim, Tony and Tracy,” Rikhoff said. “From a selfish producer standpoint, I did not want that to see that end.”
Rikhoff said he spoke to Romo briefly on Friday and Romo told him, among other things, that he was ready to have a great year again. “I know I sound like a cheerleader here but I love our team and we all just love doing football,” Rikhoff said. “I think Tony kind of rejuvenated everybody and we really enjoy the process.”
Many wondered if Romo’s contract would include a golf broadcasting component. Multiple sources said the contract is for football only.
There will now be plenty of talk in sports television circles about whether Romo’s deal resets the market for NFL analysts. A person who works in upper management at one of the networks airing NFL games believed the Romo deal would change the landscape for top analysts and that raises are coming.
“The Romo deal without a doubt sets a higher bar in the marketplace,” said one prominent broadcast agent with NFL on-air clients.“ I am by no means saying all top talent will garner $17 million. But the fact that ESPN was willing to pay that kind of money, and CBS actually agreed to pay that kind of money, gives agents and talent the right and the ability to command higher dollars even when networks try to cry poverty.”
“I don’t anticipate it will reset the market as I’m sure many analysts will expect,” said another agent from a different firm who represents NFL on-air talent. “This was the perfect storm of events that paved the way for Romo to arrive at this record deal. But if anything the deal highlights that both CBS and ESPN lack (NFL) depth, which I do think will create more value for certain individuals. If CBS had a better option internally – a No. 2 analyst they were grooming or were comfortable elevating – they would have been the ones with the leverage on Romo and would have had more control in regulating the price. A really good game analyst is obviously a huge commodity and those folks can make the case that the Romo negotiation is proof they should be valued higher.”
The next big NFL on-air talent story will be what ESPN decides to do about Monday Night Football. Play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore appears far more likely to return than analyst Booger McFarland, though ESPN has publicly said in the past that talent would be returning to Monday Night Football before changing that tune as they did with Sean McDonough.
One last amusing note on the Romo process: Rikhoff said he found it hilarious when he read reports that he and Romo might be a package deal to head to another network.
“The epitome of fake news,” Rikhoff said, laughing. “Very entertaining. I was laughing when I read it. I have been here for 34 years and I’m happy and have a long-term situation at CBS. Why would I ever want to move on from a perfect situation?
“I’ll be honest: In my deepest of hearts I believed Tony would stay at CBS. I kind of banked on that and fortunately, I was correct. I’ve been around long enough to know that when you have something special it is really hard to replicate it. But I will also admit the only time my mind would slip was when I would fast forward to Week 1 of next season and visualize Tony not being there. I’d be remiss if I didn’t telling you how daunting that felt. It would have been very hard because we have so much fun together. Tony has been a little bit of a Pied Piper for all of us. So that was a tough thing to think about. But now I’m ecstatic.”
Tony Romo would not reveal his hand. There was no tell, no overt indication of what he was thinking regarding his job status the following year. But I was struck by something he told me last December in the CBS broadcast booth at Gillette Stadium when I passed along a declaration that his broadcast partner Jim Nantz had made a couple of hours earlier. Nantz said he would not lobby Romo during the NFL season to stay with CBS long-term but he wanted more than anything to call a generation of games with Romo. He believed that if he and Romo got 15 years together, they could go down as one of the best NFL broadcasting teams of all time.
I relayed this story to Romo, which of course was an attempt to try to get Romo to give up something about his upcoming contract negotiations with CBS. At the time I embedded with this crew in December, Romo was still two months-plus away from the 30-day exclusive negotiating period that CBS had after the Super Bowl to sign him to a contract. If that period passed without Romo signing with CBS, he would be able to talk to other broadcast outlets.
“More than anything I love our team,” Romo said that day in Foxborough. “If I am lucky enough to work in this industry for 15 or 20 years, no one would not want to be with Jim Nantz forever. I know how talented he is and I also know how close a friend he is. That is something I feel lucky about, that I got to start my career with him. Really, that is a gift. I know how Jim feels. And I think he knows how I feel. We obviously appreciate each other’s friendship. Thinking 40 years from now, if I had been around someone who has done this for so long and at such a high level and who is also a close friend and also helps you and teaches you? That would make it more rewarding.”
I thought about that answer last week when word came down that CBS had signed Romo to a long-term deal that extends far beyond the current rights deal between CBS and the NFL (which expires after the 2022 season). The details of Romo’s contract were first reported by the New York Post and Sports Business Daily, with the Post reporting that CBS will pay the broadcaster in the neighborhood of $17 million per year, the highest annual salary ever for a sports broadcaster. I have since learned the contract goes beyond five years at a minimum, with provisions that can extend it.
There was significant motivation on the CBS side to get a deal done before Romo hit the open market. That urgency helped raise the price dramatically for Romo’s CAA group, led by agents Tom Young and R.J. Gonser. The deal was completed Friday afternoon and details broke shortly afterward.
The motivation for CBS was obvious: They wanted to signal loud and clear to the NFL (and the advertising community) that they are serious about extending their media partnership with the NFL. CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. merged last August to form a new company and NFL football will be critical to that business. The NFL’s media rights discussions are expected to commence sometime this year.
Is Romo worth it? The money does not seem as crazy when you step back and realize that CBS pays the NFL roughly $1 billion under the terms of its current deal, as well as $100 million in production costs to air NFL games. The Super Bowl budget for networks that air the game is believed to be around $25 million. ESPN alone is paying $1.9 billion for the NFL and $100 million for a playoff game. When you look at it in those terms, Romo’s salary is not crazy to lock up a significant talent on your most important television property. I’ve been on the record since 2017 that I consider Romo the best analyst in football and this will prove to be money well spent, I predict.
Given the record financials for a broadcast, there is no doubt that negotiation was a wild ride. Logic would suggest that Romo’s camp probably thought at times he would be heading into the open market, where ESPN was waiting.
Would ESPN have paid Romo more than $17 million annually had he hit the open market? Multiple ESPN sources said that the company would never have come close to that number. CBS Sports sources believe ESPN would have topped it. The question you have to ask is what price would ESPN put on changing two years of negative news about Monday Night Football, as well as signal to the NFL that it was serious about putting the best product out there among NFL-airing networks? It’s no secret that Disney/ESPN/ABC has designs on getting a bigger slice of the NFL pie including a Super Bowl. That’s why I don’t out of hand dismiss ESPN paying crazy money for Romo, despite that fact it would have blown up the company’s talent salary structure. (ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro has been shedding talent salaries over the past 12-18 months.)
If money was not a major factor in Romo’s decision, Romo would not be earning $17 million annually and Young and Gosner would not be able to buy their colleagues fancy dinners in Los Angeles for the next decade. It was clearly a factor. But there is also this: Romo and Nantz love working together, and Romo has said the same about the production team that producer Jim Rikhoff has assembled. Nantz and Romo were friends prior to their working arrangement and that friendship has since grown. Rikhoff is the only producer Romo has worked with in sports television. (That friendship was forged when Rikhoff made eight trips to Dallas before Romo called a single game.) Mike Arnold is the only director Romo has worked with. In contract talks with Romo, CBS undoubtedly highlighted the quality of its games in the 4:25 p.m. ET Sunday window over competitors, as well as viewership advantages (CBS’s national windows draw about 10 million more viewers than Monday Night Football), the comfort level of the crew, and that CBS is airing the Super Bowl this year. Tom Brewer, Romo’s longtime friend and now his traveling editorial consultant and spotter, had only great things to say about CBS when I spoke with him in December – and Romo trusts Brewer implicitly. Does that matter more than $17 million? Only Romo knows, and he politely declined comment this week via CBS Sports PR.
Rikhoff, in an interview on Sunday, said he learned of Romo’s ultimate decision on Friday shortly before it came public. (He did talk to Romo occasionally throughout the process but said he tried to stay away from Romo’s future.) He called Arnold and replay producer Ryan Galvin when he learned the news and later spoke with sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson, who was also overjoyed by Romo’s decision.“ I feel like this is a once in a generation crew obviously headed by Jim, Tony and Tracy,” Rikhoff said. “From a selfish producer standpoint, I did not want that to see that end.”
Rikhoff said he spoke to Romo briefly on Friday and Romo told him, among other things, that he was ready to have a great year again. “I know I sound like a cheerleader here but I love our team and we all just love doing football,” Rikhoff said. “I think Tony kind of rejuvenated everybody and we really enjoy the process.”
Many wondered if Romo’s contract would include a golf broadcasting component. Multiple sources said the contract is for football only.
There will now be plenty of talk in sports television circles about whether Romo’s deal resets the market for NFL analysts. A person who works in upper management at one of the networks airing NFL games believed the Romo deal would change the landscape for top analysts and that raises are coming.
“The Romo deal without a doubt sets a higher bar in the marketplace,” said one prominent broadcast agent with NFL on-air clients.“ I am by no means saying all top talent will garner $17 million. But the fact that ESPN was willing to pay that kind of money, and CBS actually agreed to pay that kind of money, gives agents and talent the right and the ability to command higher dollars even when networks try to cry poverty.”
“I don’t anticipate it will reset the market as I’m sure many analysts will expect,” said another agent from a different firm who represents NFL on-air talent. “This was the perfect storm of events that paved the way for Romo to arrive at this record deal. But if anything the deal highlights that both CBS and ESPN lack (NFL) depth, which I do think will create more value for certain individuals. If CBS had a better option internally – a No. 2 analyst they were grooming or were comfortable elevating – they would have been the ones with the leverage on Romo and would have had more control in regulating the price. A really good game analyst is obviously a huge commodity and those folks can make the case that the Romo negotiation is proof they should be valued higher.”
The next big NFL on-air talent story will be what ESPN decides to do about Monday Night Football. Play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore appears far more likely to return than analyst Booger McFarland, though ESPN has publicly said in the past that talent would be returning to Monday Night Football before changing that tune as they did with Sean McDonough.
One last amusing note on the Romo process: Rikhoff said he found it hilarious when he read reports that he and Romo might be a package deal to head to another network.
“The epitome of fake news,” Rikhoff said, laughing. “Very entertaining. I was laughing when I read it. I have been here for 34 years and I’m happy and have a long-term situation at CBS. Why would I ever want to move on from a perfect situation?
“I’ll be honest: In my deepest of hearts I believed Tony would stay at CBS. I kind of banked on that and fortunately, I was correct. I’ve been around long enough to know that when you have something special it is really hard to replicate it. But I will also admit the only time my mind would slip was when I would fast forward to Week 1 of next season and visualize Tony not being there. I’d be remiss if I didn’t telling you how daunting that felt. It would have been very hard because we have so much fun together. Tony has been a little bit of a Pied Piper for all of us. So that was a tough thing to think about. But now I’m ecstatic.”
