It's a far cry from Madden and Summerall...

per Yahoo Sports...

Fox has a new No. 1 NFL announcing team. ADVERTISEMENT


Former players Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth will join lead baseball announcer Joe Buck next season on the network's top games, a TV industry source said Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

The decision to go with a three-man booth to replace the departed duo of John Madden and Pat Summerall will be announced Thursday, the source said.

Aikman retired from football before last season after winning three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and passing for 32,942 yards and 165 touchdowns.

He worked last year on Fox NFL broadcasts with former Cowboys teammate Daryl Johnston and play-by-play announcer Dick Stockton. Johnston and Stockton will be Fox's No. 2 team in 2002.

Collinsworth moves to the broadcast booth from Fox's top-rated Sunday pregame show, where he won't necessarily be replaced.

Last week, Buck won the Sports Emmy for outstanding play-by-play announcer for the second time in three years for his baseball work. Fox broadcasts major league playoff games and the World Series, so Buck will miss a few NFL games at the start of the season. Stockton is expected to replace him in the No. 1 booth for those games.

Fox outbid other networks in 1994 to lure Madden and Summerall from CBS, thereby lending legitimacy to its new status as a sports broadcaster. But the network didn't renew Summerall's contract when it expired at the end of last season, and it allowed Madden to leave in February so he could move to ABC's ``Monday Night Football.'' In part, Fox didn't want to keep an unhappy Madden for a year, then have to start its search for a new set of top announcers afresh in 2003.