Maybe the biggest media news on this particular Super Bowl Sunday didn’t come from anything around Super Bowl LVII itself, but rather from Fox‘s pregame show. There, they brought out former New York Yankees‘ star Derek Jeter, and announced he’ll be joining their MLB on Fox team for this upcoming baseball season.
Derek Jeter introduced to the Fox MLB team. ⚾️📺🎙️ pic.twitter.com/Xz7uAQybtS
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 12, 2023
This is perhaps particularly interesting given the continued MLB on Fox presence of Jeter‘s former Yankees teammate Alex Rodriguez (seen hugging Jeter at top in a still from that clip). Those two people have had a complicated history, and even their recent interactions have seemed somewhat strained at times. But they do seem to be willing to work together, and it will be worth keeping a eye on how that develops. (We also don’t yet know just how much work Jeter will be doing for Fox, and what that will look like.)
The other notable element here is Jeter winding up with Fox rather than ESPN or TBS. Since his February 2022 decision to step down as CEO of the Miami Marlins and sell his minority ownership share there, Jeter has made some noise about working in baseball again in some capacity. And a media role always seemed possible given his prominence, and given ESPN’s decision to do a seven-part The Captain docuseries on him (and also feature him on a KayRod Cast), they seemed like a logical fit. But ESPN does have less MLB broadcasts these days, and Fox does have their very personality-driven studio show, so perhaps they were a better fit for Jeter. It will be interesting to see how he does with Fox, and if his performance there is properly rated or Jeterated.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]
