There’s apparently some beef brewing between Troy Aikman and crew members of the Monday Night Football production team.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Monday Night football director Jimmy Platt and producer Phil Dean were being replaced for Derek Mobley and Steve Ackels.
#ESPN is making changes to its crew for Monday Night Football and CFB broadcasts.
— Barrett Sports Media (@BSMStaff) March 11, 2023
Congrats to @deeemob @SteveAckels Jimmy Platt and Phil Dean! https://t.co/OQ4gl8ymJQ
Monday Night Football crew members aren’t happy about losing Jimmy Platt and have begun to air out some behind-the-scenes dirty laundry.
While speaking to Awful Announcing, an anonymous MNF crew member complained that working with Aikman got off to a rocky start on week 1 because Aikman couldn’t figure out how to use ESPN’s telestrators.
“It all started week one, “He was dogging the crew and gear on the air when he couldn’t figure his telestrator out. He couldn’t figure it out because he shows up on game day. Didn’t practice. So before halftime, our director had already gotten operations to call someone at Fox, find out exactly what model he used for years prior, and had it shipped in for the next game”
Another crewmember bashed Aikman for showing up to games and leaving on his private plan without spending time with the crew.
“Troy travels on his private jet on Monday mornings and flies home after the game,” said a source. “He could not be further removed from the crew and I would confidently say that he knows maybe 10 people on a crew of like 150+ people.”
“Never came to a camera meeting. No crew outings. Nothing. You’d think someone who is going into a long-term, big-money contract at a new network would come in and try to make it home. Not at all,” said another source.”
After leaving Fox, Aikman became one of the highest-paid broadcasters when he signed a 5-year $90 million contract with ESPN.
With all that money maybe Aikman should buy his crew some dinner every now and then.
…sounds like a group of people who don’t know how to act professionally …excluding Aikman. If someone needs him to do more “prep”, then someone should sit down with him and identify what he needs to do, and insure that they set aside the time to buff up on the new equipment and such. Moaning to the public is about as unprofessional as they get. The NFL has stabbed themselves in the foot so many times over the last 5 years, no wonder so many now hate the NFL. I’m shocked no one has called Aikman a White Nationalist, a White Supremist or a racist….but I’m sure that will come.