Tony Romo was arrested on July 23 in Milwaukee after deputies pulled him over on I-43 for allegedly passing unsafely and drifting lanes. He reportedly failed field sobriety tests and got cited for an open container, on top of the OWI charge itself. CBS didn't wait around — Romo is on leave "until further notice," with J.J. Watt sliding into the lead analyst chair alongside Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson in the meantime.
The number that's actually driving the discourse, though, isn't the blood alcohol reading — it's the contract. Romo is sitting on roughly $70 million and 4 more years with CBS, a deal that made him the highest-paid broadcaster in the industry when he signed it. An OWI arrest doesn't just complicate a Sunday broadcast rotation, it puts a spotlight on exactly how much these booth gigs actually pay.
That's the backdrop for Pardon My Take dropping a "Romo Update" segment into their Sunday show notes, sandwiched between Oregon's Dan Lanning, Nebraska's Matt Rhule, and Tarik Skubal getting traded to the Dodgers. When a DUI arrest is casually filed next to trade deadline news and Big Ten coaching interviews, that's a pretty good sign this story has fully entered the sports media bloodstream.
Wake Up Barstool dug into the same story, and Dave Portnoy used it to torch the entire broadcast-booth pay structure. "I don't get the contracts at all," Portnoy said. "You don't choose what NFL game you're gonna watch based off who the crew is, it's who the game is... They are the most bizarre contracts that are given out to any humans on earth."
Dave Portnoy breaks down the Romo/OWI news on Wake Up Barstool and rips into how NFL broadcast contracts get handed out.
It's a fair point. Romo's rise from Cowboys backup to $180 million-plus lead NFL analyst happened almost entirely off vibes — one great debut alongside Nantz in 2017 and he became the most bankable voice in the sport, regardless of which two teams he's actually calling. Networks pay for star power, not accuracy, and that math is exactly what makes an arrest like this so financially awkward. CBS can bench him, but the contract doesn't just evaporate.
Romo has a court date set for September 21, which lines up right around Week 3 of the NFL season — meaning this isn't going away quietly before the schedule really gets rolling. Whether Watt keeps the seat warm for a few weeks or the whole season is still an open question, but either way, the league's biggest broadcast chair just became a lot more interesting than the games it's supposed to be covering.