How Tom Brady Is Preparing For His $375 Million NFL Broadcasting Career
From dry runs with Kevin Burkhardt to speech coaches and artificial intelligence, Tom Brady is more prepared for his first NFL broadcast than any analyst ever.
Many people were confused when Fox Sports announced it was signing Tom Brady as the network’s lead NFL analyst in 2022. Not only was Brady still playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the time, but the future Hall of Fame quarterback received a 10-year, $375 million contract from Fox, easily making him the world’s highest-paid sports broadcaster before he ever muttered a single word from the booth.
Everyone *wanted* Brady, of course. But, for context, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are widely considered the NFL’s best broadcasting duo, and now Brady was going to make more money annually ($37.5 million) than both of them combined (~$33 million).
The money isn’t necessarily the problem. ESPN is paying the NFL $2.7 billion annually for the exclusive rights to Monday Night Football, and Buck and Aikman’s salaries represent just over 1% of that payment. Disney will make the money back within the first few weeks of the season on commercials, not counting affiliate fees, and the stability of Buck and Aikman adds an aura that other networks don’t have.
Add in the fact that 1) Kevin Burkhardt is cheaper than Joe Buck and 2) Fox had the contractual right to reduce Greg Olsen’s salary from $10 million to $3 million annually when he dropped to the No. 2 team, and Brady’s high price tag makes more sense.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t other questions, though. Many people insinuated that Brady would end up backing out of the agreement after he decided to delay it a year upon his retirement in 2023. And there was an even bigger elephant in the room that few media members felt comfortable discussing (i.e., the gap between a good broadcaster and a great broadcaster is vast, and what would happen if Fox Sports committed $375 million to Brady only to later find out that he wasn’t that good at it?).