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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.
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.