Amazon, it turns out, wasn’t the only party questioning Kirk Herbstreit’s future on Thursday nights.
Pro Football Talk owner Mike Florio said on Pardon My Take that Travis Kelce and Greg Olsen both asked Amazon last year whether Prime Video’s lead Thursday Night Football role would become available while Herbstreit was still under contract. Florio disclosed while answering a gun-to-his-head question from Barstool’s Dan “Big Cat” Katz about who will call Monday Night Football alongside Joe Buck next season, and his answer was Kelce rather than Olsen, the Emmy-winning Fox analyst widely regarded as the frontrunner for that seat.
“Last year, Travis Kelce and Greg Olsen were inquiring with Amazon about whether or not the Prime Video spot would be available next year,” Florio said, “and Kirk Herbstreit was still under contract. So, Kelce was looking at this last year. He’s already got the relationship with Amazon with New Heights, but his brother’s already got the relationship in place with ESPN. And he’s going to be the one. He’s going to be the one they all want.”
Who will be calling Monday night football with Joe Buck next year? https://t.co/7TySfVKtEW
— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) October 16, 2026
Florio didn’t elaborate on how far either overture progressed, but Kelce has established ties to both Amazon and ESPN. New Heights, the chart-topping podcast Kelce co-hosts with his brother Jason, struck a lucrative deal with Amazon, and Kelce has already fronted a Prime Video primetime series as host of its Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? reboot. His inroads at ESPN come by way of his older brother, Jason, who chose the network over reported interest from CBS, NBC, and Amazon after retiring in 2024. Jason has been a fixture on Monday Night Countdown ever since, and this season ESPN elevated him to its No. 2 NFL booth alongside Dave Pasch and Kurt Warner, where he earned strong reviews in his debut during Colts-Commanders in London.
After weighing retirement last offseason, Kelce opted to play a 14th season with the Chiefs, but few expect him to suit up beyond this year. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand outlined the parameters of his post-playing career on his Marchand Sports Media podcast in January, reporting that Kelce is far more interested in calling games than in a studio role, that he will consider only a No. 1 position, and that his asking price will fall somewhere between $10 million and $20 million per year. Even a studio job could reportedly fetch him more than $15 million annually.
Florio believes as many as three networks could be in the market for a new lead analyst, and that all of them will be interested in Kelce.
“And as it stands, CBS is going to be looking, ESPN is going to be looking, and Prime Video did that extension with [Kirk] Herbstreit that basically has a clause that says ‘If we find anyone better, we can tear up your contract,'” Florio said. “So, there could be a three-way bidding war for Travis Kelce, and I think they’re all going to want him, and I think he’s going to be in a booth somewhere next year.”
The terms of Herbstreit’s new deal give Amazon ample room to pursue that scenario. Marchand reported on Sept. 30 that Herbstreit had agreed to remain the lead analyst on Thursday Night Football for more than $10 million per year, but Prime Video retained the right to replace him should one of its top targets become available. Our Matt Yoder described the structure as one of the weirdest in sports broadcasting history and identified Kelce as a possible successor, along with Rams head coach Sean McVay, who is believed to be Amazon’s first choice. Herbstreit has juggled his Thursday duties with College GameDay and ABC’s Saturday night college football broadcasts since arriving at Amazon in 2022, yet he and Al Michaels have never developed much rapport on the air.
Michaels’ own future with the streamer is no more secure. The 81-year-old left NBC for Prime Video on a three-year contract when Amazon took over TNF in 2022, and he has worked on a year-to-year basis since that deal lapsed after the 2024 season. During an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show this week, Michaels said he would not stand in Amazon’s way if it decided to move on. Marchand has also reported that the streamer views CBS’ Ian Eagle as a potential successor, even as CBS hopes to retain him.
CBS still has a long-term decision to make after formally parting ways with Tony Romo earlier this month. The split followed Romo’s suspension in the wake of an OWI arrest in Wisconsin over the summer. J.J. Watt will finish the season alongside Jim Nantz, but CBS has only committed to Watt in its top booth through 2026, leaving the network without a long-term partner for Nantz for the first time since Romo joined him nine years ago. Nantz said this week that he expects Romo to resurface elsewhere in the business.
ESPN’s situation is the most volatile of the three. Buck and Troy Aikman have worked together since 2002, first at Fox and later at ESPN, but the network gave Buck a lucrative extension in September without extending an offer to Aikman, and that imbalance produced tension that came to a head this week. Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reported that Buck raised the issue with Aikman before Monday’s Bills-Rams game at SoFi Stadium, prompting an argument between the two that had subsided by kickoff. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback had an opportunity to tamp down the story when he appeared on KTCK The Ticket in Dallas on Thursday. Instead, he declined to dispute the report before remarking to Jimmy Traina that he expects ESPN to go in a different direction.
“It just seems to be where they’re going — that they’re gonna go in a different direction because there’s been no talks, no contract negotiations,” Aikman said.
No candidate has been linked to Aikman’s chair more frequently than Olsen. Puck’s John Ourand reported Thursday that his best sources anticipate Olsen partnering with Buck on MNF next season, and Olsen will be free to pursue that opportunity once his Fox contract expires after this year. He earned an Emmy and called a Super Bowl as Fox’s lead analyst before losing that post in 2024 to accommodate Tom Brady and his $375 million contract, which prompted Olsen to explore a move to CBS. Sports Business Journal’s Richard Deitsch initially reported that the network had not entered negotiations with Olsen, but Fox executives later told Deitsch they had outlined contract parameters to his representatives early in the offseason. Fox Sports president Brad Zager added that the network is ready to resume discussions whenever Olsen is.
Aikman has also fueled speculation about his own potential successor. When he appeared on New Heights in April, Aikman pitched Kelce on joining ESPN, and Kelce joked that the network seemed too polished for him before conceding he’d have a blast working there. Five months later, with his own future in Bristol increasingly uncertain, Aikman said he can’t envision Kelce forgoing a television career and predicted that a lineup of suitors would form once he retires.
The guest list at Kelce’s July wedding to Taylor Swift hinted at how crowded that line could become. As our Drew Lerner documented, the guest list included nearly the entire NFL on Fox roster, including Brady, Kevin Burkhardt, Olsen, Michael Strahan, and Rob Gronkowski, along with Prime Video TNF studio regulars Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Andrew Whitworth. ESPN was represented by Buck, Pat McAfee, Stephen A. Smith and, naturally, Jason Kelce, while Herbstreit and Michaels did not appear to attend. CBS and NBC initially seemed to have no representation at all, until Florio reported that Nantz and Romo had in fact been among the guests.
Florio’s prediction would place Kelce in the Monday Night Football booth beside a man who attended his wedding, in a lead chair that another wedding guest has coveted since Fox demoted him in 2024. Whether ESPN, Amazon, or CBS ultimately prevails remains to be seen, but the competition for Kelce appears to have begun long before any of them had a vacancy to fill.
The post Mike Florio: Travis Kelce and Greg Olsen inquired with Amazon last year about Prime Video’s top analyst job appeared first on Awful Announcing.