RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Yahoo Sports — the article as it was filed.
Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office, The Dan Le Batard Show
Tony Romo was once the brightest star in sports broadcasting. But those days seem like they were a generation ago.
The former Dallas Cowboys star and lead analyst for the NFL on CBS was arrested while at a golf tournament in Wisconsin on suspicion of operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Romo was in his home state for the Wisconsin Amateur Championship golf tournament.
Although a first-time OWI offense is a civil violation and not a criminal charge in Wisconsin, Romo has a court date set for Monday, September 21.
On Monday’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show , the host reflected on the news and discussed Romo’s fall from the top of the sports media industry. After wowing fans with his ability to predict plays and inform viewers as nobody had ever seen before from an analyst, Romo lost touch with the game. What followed was a long, slow decline that turned Tony Romo into a broadcasting meme instead of a football savant.
And Le Batard wondered if the news of Romo’s arrest following the reported intervention in 2023 would be enough for CBS to pursue getting out of the 10-year, $180 million contract he signed in 2020.
“There has been nobody in the history of my sports broadcasting watching that has been able to do what Tony Romo did. But the evolution of the game changes so much that once he lost that parlor trick, almost immediately, what was Tony Romo’s stock started going down with everyone, including his employers, who reportedly had an intervention because they didn’t think he was working hard enough at what he was doing,” Le Batard said. “But why would you if you were getting tens of millions of dollars and you come out with a splash and there’s never been a novice of any sort in broadcasting who gets that much applause for like, I can’t believe how good he is at picking plays before they happen.”
Dan Le Batard then compared the Tony Romo situation to another former quarterback-turned-broadcaster who had an encounter with the law in Fox’s Mark Sanchez. The two situations are indeed very different, as Sanchez was fired when a confrontation that he initiated in Indianapolis turned violent, and he was arrested and charged with assault. But while not legally comparable, he did say that Romo’s situation has a level of “shame” involved that could give CBS a reason to make a move to get rid of their embattled lead analyst if they felt so inclined.
“Has his star diminished enough that you guys are thinking that whatever it is between him and Nantz that make them one of the premier broadcast teams in the league, but no longer the premier broadcast team in the league by observers, that you think given that his employers had to stage what was called an intervention to get him to work harder, now you have an incident like this that doesn’t have obviously the kind of shame that would end someone like Mark Sanchez’s career, but it has a shame involved that if you were looking for a reason to get rid of somebody, this kind of publicity is reason enough,” Le Batard asked hypothetically.
It’s a very sticky situation for CBS Sports given the arrest, Romo’s drop in form, and the mammoth contract that he is being paid. To this point, CBS has unequivocally stood by Tony Romo despite all the criticism that has come his way. And if you want to draw a parallel to his Wisconsin incident, Al Michaels was arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles in April 2013 and was not even suspended by NBC.
Of course, CBS’s decision could come down to what provisions are in Romo’s contract, if any, that would cover such an event like the Wisconsin arrest. If there is an out clause, it would certainly change the conversation behind the scenes at the company regarding his future. While the arrest likely won’t even lead to a criminal charge, someone with a $180 million contract as one of the faces of a publicly traded company and watched by tens of millions of Americans every week in the fall isn’t held to normal standards.
CBS has yet to comment publicly on Romo or his future. Given the support and investment the network has made in him over the years, and the fact that he has spent so many years now beside Jim Nantz in the top booth, it would still be a shock to see CBS make such a move now, despite the trends. But the arrest will surely only add more fuel to the fire as the skeptics and critics will likely be out in full force in what could be a very long year for CBS’s lead NFL analyst.
The post Dan Le Batard asks if CBS could cut Tony Romo loose after OWI arrest appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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