Tom Brady is attempting to pull off never before seen double duty in being a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and the lead analyst for the NFL on Fox. But nobody is making it easy for him.
Ever since Brady’s ownership stake in the Raiders has been finalized, there has been drama around what he can and can’t do in his role as a Fox Sports analyst. Brady is barred from visiting team facilities and doing pretty much any of the standard background work that broadcasters do to talk to players and coaches and prep for broadcasts. He’s also restricted in what he can say and do in being critical of league officials, although the NFL finally clarified that Brady can do so within reason.
Although the average viewer might not notice too much of a difference in Brady’s work compared to his peers, the broadcast restrictions have made things awkward. And it’s led to Brady’s commitment to broadcast being questioned by many folks on whether or not he can truly have one foot in ownership and the other in television.
And according to Ben Fischer at Sports Business Journal, it’s about to get even more awkward.
At the heart of the issue now is Brady’s sit down interview with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes that may have ruffled some feathers. SBJ reports that the NFL’s finance committee will explore whether or not the interview and any future ones like it should receive more scrutiny given Brady’s position.
“Limiting Brady’s interaction with players to live or recorded interviews for broadcast only, to ensure the content of their conversations is known publicly, and prohibiting private one-on-one interactions before or after the broadcast component.”
If interviews like the Mahomes one are approved, it could even be done so with monitoring from the team involved to make sure everything stays above board.
Brady probably won’t be doing that many interviews in the course of being a Fox analyst and to be honest, this just seems to be more of a headache for the NFL on Fox than anything that should truly affect their coverage. It’s just another hoop to jump through. There is less security around meetings between world leaders than what’s facing Brady at the moment.
But it just goes to show that this is uncharted territory and we’re not sure where any of this actually ends. Brady was seen on the field before Sunday’s Bears-Packers game talking with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. Was that something that is allowable? Or should it have been monitored and recorded by drones?
While they are so dialed in, it would be nice if NFL owners actually could focus on important things with Tom Brady’s broadcast career like doing something to stop those weird hologram segments.
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