Tom Brady continues to be an NFL personality unlike no other while serving as both Fox’s lead in-game analyst and as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.
However, recent stories suggesting that Brady and general manager John Spytek are basically running football operations for the Raiders have resulted in renewed calls for Brady to “pick a lane” and choose either Fox or his NFL team. For a piece published on Wednesday, lead Fox NFL producer Richie Zyontz spoke with Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal about Brady’s broadcasting future.
Tom Brady thinking beyond 2026 for Fox career?
“I think he’s long-term for it, for sure,” Zyontz said about Brady’s working relationship with Fox. “You can’t predict the future, and you can foresee unforeseen events. But I would say right now he’s committed to doing this as long as he can, and he’s gotten damn good at it.”
Brady and Fox agreed to a 10-year deal reportedly
worth $375M in 2022. Thus far, there has been no indication that other NFL team owners will stop him from working for one of the league’s major media partners while he is also a minority owner of a single franchise.
Brady previously acknowledged that some thought he “sounded nervous or timid” when he started calling games at the beginning of the 2024 season. In November of this year, Armand Broady of Sports Media Watch noted that Brady had “shown marked improvement in his sophomore campaign alongside boothmate Kevin Burkhardt and reporters Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi.”
It appears Zyontz agrees with that assessment.
Tom Brady “overprepared” for debut Fox season
“Tom overprepared last year because he had so much to say,” Zyontz explained. “…Tom would start a thought, and maybe there would be an awkward moment where he wasn’t quite sure where he was going to go. I don’t see that at all this year. He knew exactly what to work on between Season 1 and Season 2, and most of it is just getting more comfortable with what a broadcast is. It’s what you can do and what you can’t do, and what I should prepare for and what I should pare down.”
Casual football fans don’t care about any supposed conflict of interest involving Brady’s relationships with Fox and the Raiders. Those viewers simply want to enjoy the broadcasts of games, such as the NFC title clash between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks.
Zyontz seems convinced fans will enjoy what they hear from Brady this coming Sunday.
“We kind of knew Tom was not going to make a quantum leap last year between say Week 5 and 6 or Week 11 and 12, but give him a few months to figure it out. Because you’re talking about Tom Brady,” Zyontz continued. “And he figured it out between Year 1 and Year 2.”
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