Tom Brady is a broadcaster, set to make his Fox regular season debut next weekend. Brady also wants to become an owner, long in the process of being minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. Despite the conflict of interest, the NFL is allowing Brady to wear both hats. But it’s going to come at a price.
At a league meeting earlier this week, the NFL made clear Brady will face certain and severe restrictions as a broadcaster as he pursues becoming part-owner. Per ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, Brady won’t have the freedom the rest of his Fox crew has.
“Brady would not be permitted to be in another team’s facility, would not be permitted to witness practice and would not be permitted to attend broadcast production meetings, either in person or virtually.”
And according to Rich Eisen yesterday, these rules are already in effect for Brady even though he hasn’t officially been approved as a Raiders minority owner.
While those restrictions might not sound like much, they’re impactful to a broadcaster. Especially one like Brady, the lead analyst on Fox’s A-team, and someone being paid $375 million to call games for the network the next 10 years. Production meetings with players and coaches are critical conversations to help shape a broadcast. To share an anecdote during a broadcast, to understand how a season is going, to have access no one else has that can elevate insight and the quality of a broadcast. Without it, Tom Brady will be flying blind as he steps into the booth for the first time, save for the occasional cameo appearances.
Per that ESPN article, time was dedicated to discuss Brady’s restrictions during the meeting on a slide dubbed as “Brady – Broadcast Restrictions.” For full context, these restrictions aren’t new. As the NFL pointed out, Greg Olsen had the same limitations when he called a 2017 game for Fox while still playing in the league. And Eisen shared the story of the Atlanta Falcons once commandeering a trailer to put outside their facility grounds when St. Louis Rams WR Torry Holt once showed up to sheet an NFL promo. In this business, everyone is protective and borders on paranoid.
Can Brady still do his job well even without direct access? Sure. But the NFL is doing its best to avoid a conflict of interest and whispers of the Raiders benefitting from Brady getting to talk to coaches and players around the league, who are far more honest in these meetings than they are otherwise with the media.
Brady will make his 2024 debut Sunday, calling a game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns. There’s a chance he could call one of the Steelers’ later games. They have a pair of potentially marquee games on Fox in Week 15 against Philadelphia and Week 16 versus Baltimore.
