Tom Brady has spent the past two years adjusting to life on the other side of the NFL spotlight. However, the legendary quarterback has discovered something about his $375 million broadcasting job with Fox Sports that caught him off guard.
Tom Brady Didn’t Expect Several Elements of $375 Million Fox Job
It wasn’t the pressure of calling games. It wasn’t learning the television business. Brady said the biggest surprise was the sense of family and belongingness that came with joining Fox Sports’ NFL operation.
Speaking at Fox Sports’ annual NFL seminar in late July, Brady explained that he had not initially expected the network’s NFL crew to feel so much like a family.
“I have a lot to prove to myself, to my teammates. I have a lot to prove to the executives,” Brady said. “I want to go earn it and I don’t want anything given to me.”
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Brady’s comments show how seriously he’s taking his second career. He isn’t treating broadcasting as a victory lap or something given.
“I hope they’ll have me through the end of this contract,” Brady said. “I love getting to enjoy the game. I love watching good football. There’s such great camaraderie and chemistry we all have together.”
That relationship with his Fox colleagues appears to have become one of the job’s unexpected rewards. “We have seminars. We have off-site retreats. We have text threads with all of us,” Brady added. “It feels like a big family in so many ways, and I was not really expecting that when I decided to take the job.”
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However, Brady’s transition to broadcasting has hardly been free of scrutiny. His simultaneous minority ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders drew criticism of his role at Fox. Brady dismissed much of that outside commentary as noise.
“It’s clickbait for people and it’s something that people have no idea what they’re really glomming onto,” Brady said. “They just put it out there in the world and see what sticks.”
It’s not tough to notice that Brady’s mindset here shows exactly what has defined his playing career — prepare, perform, and let the results answer the critics.
“So to me, I just focus on what I need to do to be prepared,” Brady continued. “That’s what I did as a player, and I go out there every week as a broadcaster and try to do the same thing.”
Fox President and Executive Producer Brad Zager also seems to be on the same page as Brady. Even with his business interests and ownership of the Raiders, Zager said the former quarterback has consistently communicated his intent to remain in broadcasting for the long haul.
“From the moment we signed Tom, no matter what was written or said, I have never gotten an indication from Tom that he is not into this for the long haul,” Zager said. “For over a decade, we also heard about [Aikman] possibly taking a front office job. Rumors like that were always out there. You don’t know what the future holds, but I can tell you right now that we have had no discussions with Tom that didn’t involve him being here for a long time.”
For now, Brady is enjoying his broadcasting job while he is spotted at the Raiders facility from time to time, fulfilling his duties as a minority owner.
