WHEN DID THE NFL BROADCAST BOOTH BECOME AS BIG AS THE GAMES?

As ego-driven network bosses play top-this with talent contracts — ESPN poached Troy Aikman for a record $18 million-plus annually — it gives pause to why Sean McVay would consider leaving the Rams

     The TV booth used to be the outhouse. It’s where good football men were sent to graze, then fade away, after their knees or brains stopped working. They were joined by play-by-play barkers moonlighting from baseball gigs, unless the golf or bowling tours called first.

     Certainly, there wasn’t hysterical, wall-to-wall media coverage of job movements. Contract amounts required one comma, not two to separate nine heavy digits with multiple zeroes. And if a coach just won a Super Bowl, he sure wasn’t considering a broadcast career days later because he feared burning out on the sideline … or, closer to the point, missing out on a fat payday.

     Since when did calling the games mushroom into as big a deal, if not bigger, than participating in the games themselves? Why are we as agog about Al Michaels’ next destination as Aaron Rodgers’ future? Is it actually a legitimate discussion whether Sean McVay, the youngest coach to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy, prefers to strap on Jeff Bezos’ microphone at Amazon than try and lead the Los Angeles Rams to more championships?

     Oh, you thought McVay and his fiancee pole-axed that craziness last week? The rumors are back, with a flurry of activity — Troy Aikman will make more money per year at ESPN than everyone else in sportscasting history, even turning Stephen A. Smith into a pauper — positioning McVay for similar network riches if he wants. Could he really reject such money when Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who spent $6 billion to build a stadium and settled for almost $1 billion with St. Louis on a relocation lawsuit, won’t be paying anywhere near an Aikman-like $18 million-plus annually when Bill Belichick, who has five more Super Bowl rings than McVay, only recently reached $18 million at age 69? Suddenly, McVay’s introspective words last month don’t seem so dismissible, even at 36.

     “I love this so much that it's such a passion,’’ he said, “but I also know that what I've seen from some of my closest friends, whether it's coaches or even some of our players, I'm gonna be married this summer, I want to have a family and I think being able to find that balance but also be able to give the time necessary. I have always had a dream about being able to be a father and I can't predict the future, you know?’’

     I remember the days when no one cared if Beavis and Butt-head were in the booth. The appeal of a particular game was all that mattered. The dynamics changed when the NFL blew past Major League Baseball during its last labor impasse — the damned owners still haven’t learned their life lesson, have they? — and commenced lift-off on an uber-popular joyride that still feels like a runaway train. John Madden emerged with his “Booms!’’ and “Bams!’’ and, before you knew it, the broadcast talent was part of the zeitgeist.

     The hotter-than-ever pot is stirred today by ego-obsessive network executives who believe that they, too, are sports superstars. And when slobbering agents know five media conglomerates are paying $113 billion in NFL rights into the next decade — NBC, CBS, Fox, Disney, Amazon — well, it leads to a staggering moment in 2022 when Aikman becomes the latest ex-Dallas Cowboys quarterback to command a larger annual salary than he ever did on the field. What formerly was known as “Romo Money,’’ the $18 million a year made by Tony Romo at CBS, has been exceeded by Aikman’s new mega-deal at ESPN, which is so desperate to avoid further underachievement in its “Monday Night Football’’ booth that it overpaid to poach Fox’s top analyst at $90 million-and-change over five years (per the New York Post). Next could be an announcement that Aikman’s booth partner and close friend, Joe Buck, will be joining him as Disney’s play-by-play man, which means ESPN is cribbing from the very playbook used by behemoth sports franchises when they’re down and out.

     If you can’t beat them, steal their larynxes.

     Not that any of these people are worth half their salaries. Romo was a creation of sports media critics stuck in adolescence, fanboys waiting out puberty, because he once happened to forecast a few outcomes before plays were run … commonplace perceptions for one who made his living as a pro QB. Last month, he sounded lost when calling the final frenetic moments of the AFC Championship Game, floating that the Bengals, who led by three points and were having their way defensively with Patrick Mahomes, should allow the Chiefs to score a touchdown from Cincinnati’s 9-yard line with under a minute left. A week earlier, Romo’s blind spot missed what 50 million viewers saw: Mahomes hit Travis Kelce on a game-winning catch that was legal every which way.

     “I don’t think it’s over, Jim!’’ Romo shouted at partner Jim Nantz, as replays confirmed the game was over.

     Since Romo’s ascent, the sports television industry has been wacko. Specifically, every traditional network and the new streamer — Amazon Prime — sought to construct the best NFL booth, playing a broadcasting fantasy game with billions. You get why Disney, which has wasted a “MNF’’ franchise once considered must-see entertainment, needed a significant upgrade from the low-grade crew of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick now that ESPN is in the Super Bowl TV rotation. And those who think that upgrade is one channel down the dial — Peyton and Eli Manning shooting the bull with guests — should realize Peyton is a viable candidate to be a front-facing executive for the next owners of the Denver Broncos. So Disney outbid Fox for Aikman, with an eye on Buck, whose wife, Michelle Beisner-Buck, works for ESPN as an on-air reporter.

     Money speaks, but Aikman never was thrilled with life at Fox after the network absurdly hired his old Dallas nemesis, Skip Bayless, as a low-rated host in morning TV. When Bayless was renewed last year at $32 million over four years, the opportunity to steal Aikman was valid. Was it really worth keeping Bayless, propped up by media kingmaker Jerry Jones to gullible Fox bosses, at the risk of losing Aikman … and Buck? Suddenly, even if Buck stays so he can keep doing postseason baseball, the Fox football booth is weakened. Analyst Greg Olsen has promise, but even if the honchos love him, America doesn’t really know him. And if Buck does leave, America knows as little about Kevin Burkhardt or Joe Davis.

     Somehow, Fox wasn’t the biggest loser amid the blurry changes. NBC has owned the most successful NFL broadcast, on Sunday nights, largely because Michaels and Cris Collinsworth made it appointment TV even after America was consuming pro and college football from Thursday night through Sunday afternoon. Deciding Michaels is too old at 77, without evidence of professional slippage, the bosses let his contract expire so they could begin a long-desired bump-up of Mike Tirico to play-by-play man. Tirico’s next memorable broadcasting moment will be his first, promoted to a level at which he no longer is competent, which leaves Michaels as a free agent in significant demand. If Buck remains at Fox, Michaels is in play at ESPN along with Amazon. But if Buck decides to divorce the Cleatus robot, Michaels also could be in play … at Fox.

     All of which could be made dizzier by two wild-cards. Would Amazon play top-this — Bezos has the money, yeah — and give McVay an average salary in the Aikman/Romo range when he never has set foot in a booth? Would Fox, reeling without Aikman, enter the McVay sweepstakes in an attempt to keep Buck? Then there’s Sean Payton, who isn’t through with coaching but is listening to networks for short-to-medium-term work as an analyst.

     “My plan is for someone to tell me we think you'd be good at in-game analysis or in-studio,’’ Payton told Dan Patrick, a dozen years removed from his only Super Bowl title and likely only one Mike McCarthy screwup from entering the on-deck circle for the Dallas coaching job.

     TV is where everyone wants to be. That includes the volatile Draymond Green, in the middle of an NBA season, which invites untold problems for the Golden State Warriors if his opinions spill over into controversies with opponents. TNT sees Green as a natural successor to Charles Barkley, but imagine the trash-talk issues that could have sabotaged Chuck’s teams if he’d been a paid talker during his playing career. As a sideline reporter during the alternate All-Star Game broadcast, Green was irked after the studio crew discussed his longtime rival, Utah big man Rudy Gobert.

     “You keep mentioning me in the same sentence with him — we’re not alike,” Green said.

     “Did we strike a nerve?” host Ernie Johnson said. “Apply a tourniquet down there.”

     If the Warriors meet the Jazz in the Western Conference playoffs, the exchange will be a talking point. Does coach Steve Kerr, once an analyst himself at TNT, really need those hassles? Did he have a talk with Green about not going too far? “No, no dialogue. He didn’t need my permission to do it,’’ Kerr said. “I didn't need a conversation. He’s kind of established that over the last couple of years and I’m happy for him. I think it’s great. I know what his work ethic is about and his preparation, so I’m not worried about any of that. … Draymond has already proven how good he can be on TV and this will help him lay the foundation for his post-basketball playing career. I’m very confident that he’ll be able to divide up his duties up well and not losing anything on the court.”

     There’s an element of power involved as the analyst who talks about the athletes and coaches, instead of being talked about. It makes for an easier life, without the daily stress of accountability. Think Jon Gruden regrets leaving ESPN to return to coaching, where his playoff-less stint with the Las Vegas/Oakland Raiders ended in scandal — a flurry of leaked emails that included racist, misogynist and anti-gay comments?

     But it’s also time to issue a reminder, courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better,’’ he said. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.’’

     The 26th U.S. President made his remarks in a speech known as “The Man in the Arena.’’ It happens to be the title of an ESPN documentary series produced by Tom Brady about Tom Brady, who, retired at the moment, also is said to be getting calls from the networks. Would he demand $20 million a year? Probably.

     Would he get it?

     In this ass-backwards climate, definitely.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.