ESPN may not be moving to its new Monday Night Football home until the 2006-07 season, but it has already set up its broadcast booth.
The network said Al Michaels will be making the jump from sister network ABC’s MNF team after the conclusion of the 2005-06 season, the last under the extant National Football League network contract.
Michaels -- who will conclude his 20-year ABC MNF run with the Alphabet Network’s presentation of Super Bowl XL next February -- will be joined in the ESPN booth by the cable network’s current NFL analyst, Joe Theismann. Suzy Kolber and Michele Tafoya will serve as sideline reporters
That group will work with ESPN’s Sports Emmy Award-winning NFL producer-director duo of Jay Rothman and Chip Dean, who will assume the production reins of MNF in 2006.
An ESPN spokesman said Michaels’ contract to broadcast ABC’s coverage of the National Basketball Association is negotiated with the broadcaster and has one year remaining.
