I’d like to publicly announce that I will not be joining the Monday Night Football booth.
Get ready for more of what Steve Young did on Thursday, bowing out on a job he was never going to get. It’s a great strategy for the various ESPN employees who know they won’t ever be offered the job; before it’s offered to someone else, say you don’t want it.
Young cited an inability to be away from home four days per week for five months, creating the impression that he can’t and/or won’t be away from his family for that long. The truth may be that he can’t or won’t take that much time and attention away from his private equity gig.
Remember last year’s ruckus over whether Young even likes football? Young had to do some serious toothpaste-reinserting after quotes emerged suggesting that he retains his role as a TV analyst simply to enhance his other job.
“My wife hates football, and my kids don’t really care,” Young told Bloomberg Businessweek in early 2017. “I see myself as a deal guy first. I’ve put football behind me. Roger Staubach once told me — and I’ll never forget it: ‘When you retire, run. Never look back.’”
The author of the article wrote that Young “may have quit ESPN years ago if not for his private equity partners, who like him to keep a high profile,” that Young “spends no more than an hour or two at the stadium” preparing for what he’ll say on the air, and that "[o]nce the game starts, he barely watches the action.”
Indeed, it’s one thing for a guy who is mailing it in to seamlessly bloviate in passing glances during a 17-person pregame show; it’s quite another to put in the time and effort necessary to properly call a football game, ready to analyze the aftermath of each and every snap in a concise but informative and entertaining way.
So it was never going to be Young. But it won’t hurt his private equity business for people to think that Young would have had it, if he’d only wanted it.
Yes, potential clients of HGGC, Young is so committed to this cause that he actually chose to stay here over a chance to become the next Jon Gruden. So how can you go wrong by choosing to do business with us?