SEPTEMBER 8: We are once again hearing that Brady’s ownership stake in the Raiders could soon be approved. Mark Maske of the Washington Post said at the end of last month that the matter could be put to a vote at the next owners meeting in October, and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com echoed that sentiment this morning.
Rapoport also noted that the vote could be pushed to the December labor seminar and Special League Meeting, but in any event, the expectation is that Brady will land approval as a minority owner in 2024.
AUGUST 31: The 2024 season will mark the beginning of Tom Brady‘s broadcasting career. The seven-time Super Bowl winner will operate as FOX’s lead color commentator, a role which has led to questions stemming from his pending purchase of a minority stake in the Raiders.
[RELATED: Richard Seymour To Join Brady As Raiders Minority Owner]
Brady worked out an agreement to join Mark Davis as one of the Raiders’ owners last May, but that deal has yet to be approved by the NFL. The purchase price is not believed to be point of contention anymore; rather, the issue of a potential conflict of interest remains as a sticking point amongst a number of the league’s other owners. Steps have been taken to allow Brady to operate as a broadcaster but with unique restrictions attached.
The 47-year-old will not be allowed to enter the facilities of teams other than the Raiders, nor will he take part in production meetings leading up to the games he calls, the NFL announced this week (h/t ESPN’s Seth Wickersham). Those meetings are commonplace during the days leading up to broadcasts and involve in-person conversations with players and coaches from both teams. Preventing Brady from being a part of that process should keep him from being able to use his position to provide a competitive advantage to the Raiders.
The future Hall of Famer – who inked a 10-year, $375MM deal with FOX and took a year off after his playing career ended to prepare for the transition to broadcasting – will also be subject to the league’s gambling and tampering policies even though he is not yet officially an owner. The criteria affecting Brady will take effect immediately, Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press confirms. Brady will be allowed to call Raiders games, and while on the air for those contests (and all others) he will be bound by the league rules which prohibit public criticism of officials and other teams.
No other member of the FOX staff will be subject to the rules Brady will need to abide by. Precedent for such restrictions exists based on Greg Olsen‘s initial time spent with the network as a broadcaster. Olsen’s earliest work as a color commentator came while he was still a player with the Panthers. Upon retirement, he took on full-time broadcasting work, becoming FOX’s lead analyst until this season, when Brady will replace him as Kevin Burkhart’s partner.
No firm timeline exists for when Brady’s ownership deal will be approved; that process still sits with the NFL’s finance committee. Once the agreement is put to a vote for all owners, at least 24 of 32 will need to give it the green light for him to formally join the ownership ranks. The league’s decision to implement restrictions on his broadcasting tenure could be a sign that approval will come about sometime in 2024, though.
His biggest restriction is he is a moron no one likes or wants to hear from.
10 years and 375 Million… lol If there ever was a person with a golden horse show up his arse I feel bad for Greg Olsen though getting jerked from lead commentator
Olsen was asked about this on PMT a couple months back and he doesn’t seem to be bitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS hires him to replace that bozo Romo once his contract is up
Greg Olsen is Jon Gruden 2.0 — talks in jargon, cliches, and endless praise. CBS doesn’t want that from its game analysts.
[Though CBS has poached Fox for on-air talent in Charles Davis and Kevin Harlan.]
Olsen shouldn’t feel bitter. He put in the work and it’s been noticeable how much he improved from when he first started. Look at Kevin Burkhardt as a play by play guy. If you go back to the XFL days and told anyone he’d be the guy to take over for Joe Buck people wouldn’t believe you. If you’re good at what you do people will notice and you’ll get your chance in the future.
So a guy with partiality, restricted access, and lousy on camera charisma is taking the job of Gregg Olsen, who was doing a better job than maybe anyone? Ugh.
It’s ridiculous. So he’ll be new to the job and have to dance around restrictions that won’t allow him into team facilities or to be involved in production meetings for games he’s going to call- oh, and he can’t interview players or coaches either. All to accommodate his future ownership participation in the Raiders… He’s gonna have to be great… Olsen did just fine and deserved better.
This is the NFL. Ratings are assured whether Tom Brady or Elmer Fudd is your lead analyst. Save for Madden, no one ever tuned in or clicked away if a certain voice was in the booth.
I have purposely muted certain broadcasts and listened via other means. Especially on Fox. I have also not watched the NFL and other sporting events that are broadcast on Fox because of the inordinate amount of commercials and the fact that Newscorp and many of their announcers can’t keep their ideology out of their sports broadcasts. Everyone knows there are certain “qualifications” and/or mindsets required to be a Fox sports announcer or pundit!
This is also why Brady among others, mainly gets the gig. Aka The good ‘ol boys club!
Sharks…I agree with what you say about FAUX sports….but you say that there are certain qualifications to be a FAUX sports announcer or pundit…..well you might just look at FAUX news… Hannity, Walters, Bartiromo and Judge Janine…none of whom are journalist’s, none are qualified. They are TV personalities. Hannity even admits it. So it really pisses me off when they hire former jocks to do coverage, in any sport. Don’t get me wrong a lot are qualified,just the way they present themselves to the tv audience. But guys like Brady, who has no experience,that they throw a guy like Olsen to the curb…is the good ole boys club
There’s a main reason why only certain people (players) like Brady, McAfee, the Mannings, Aikman, Tebow, R. Ryan (to name a few), etc. get these jobs and hours of airtime/facetime on various media outlets. That reason is their ideology. This is also why certain media outlets routinely push and prop up certain current and former athletes and personalities to be the “face” of a franchise, league, or media source in most of the major sports.
I guess the no politics is OK if you disguise it by complaining about sports broadcasters. I wrote a response but decided against posting it. Look up when Harris was named border Czar now that is not true. FOX covered the border for Bidens term. The joke media covered the last 6 months or so. Millions have come across that are called gotaways. People we have no idea who or where they are. Killers rapists etc were caught and released. Harris wants to do away with our border. Need to stop but people need to think for themselves. Not believe one media source. I watch many of them from local to international. Hate announcers all you want but leave politics out of it.
You’re the one who’s spewing the typical talking points, propaganda, and bs. Typically you can pick up on someone’s political leanings by listening (in this case) or speaking with them. The problem is many of the names I mentioned along with a couple of media outlets and the NFL itself can’t or don’t “leave politics out” of their broadcasts!! You’re either okay with that or naive if you think that’s not happening. ?? My point was certain people and athletes are routinely hired, and given airtime/facetime BECAUSE of their ideology over either more or equally qualified people who more than likely can keep ideology and politics to a minimum, if at all on the job.
How else do you explain why some of these guys have their jobs? Tebow? Orlovsky? McAfee? Herbstreit? R. Ryan? Bruschi? Millen? Gronkowski? Schlereth? Johnston? Aikman? Simms? Esiason? Mannings? Hell, Bradshaw, Long, Johnson, & Strahan seem to have lifetime appointments at their jobs.
It’s bad enough that we TV consumers need to be subjected to way too many commercials, the hyper militarism (aka military-industrial complex), pseudo hyper-patriotism in this country shoved down our throats every single game.
I like J. Brown, Olsen, Dungy, Tirico, C.Collinsworth, and Nantz, to name a few among other good broadcasters and I have no idea what their politics are. That is how it should be imho. Unfortunately, Newscorp and Disney mainly can’t seem to broadcast an athletic event in three hours or less that’s free of their ideology. It’s a shame many of these media companies aren’t forced to adhere to their broadcast license guidelines.
The whole drama is a comical sham. Teams could give Mark Davis their playbook each week and he still wouldn’t be able to find a way to give the Raiders a competitive advantage.
What’s it like letting Mark Davis have so much space in your head rent free?
Mark Davis is widely viewed as the Homer Simpson of NFL owners when David Tepper isn’t in the room…but he does have a swell haircut.
So….
Rent free with a loft. An article about Tom Brady spirited you into a half-witted joke about Mark Davis. You defended this with an immediate reply about his haircut. Easy Picking low hanging unoriginal fruit since 2011.
OP comment was relevant to the story. Think about why Tom Brady’s access will be restricted.
Someone with scissors in their hand should try to relax and not be so sensitive 🙂
Jerry Jones is pretty upset about your comment Lemon. Jerry feels he is Homer and Mark is Bart. Jerry was happy when Marks dad passed so he moved up to the dumbest owner in the game.
Jerry is an octogenarian and probably medicated most of the time so he has a bit of an excuse for not always making rational decisions.
The mental gymnastics and hoops required to jump through to make this work just don’t seem like it’s even worth it. Those production meetings are important for broadcasters. Audiences don’t see it, but the little details that announcers mention here and there are not all memorized details that they just picked out of the ether with a specialized football signal frequency implanted in their heads. They do prep for the game. Is some intern going to have to do it for him, or is Brady going to do all of his prep at home every game? Will there be a noticeable difference in product?
Brady shouldn’t be allowed to do that stuff if he’s an owner, of course. The only people who, in theory, lose out on Brady not being a broadcaster is Fox. They made that decision to hire him, though, and we’re under no obligation to sympathize with either them or Davis for trying to scoot Brady into the ownership club. There is nothing entitling him to that information. Similarly, there is nothing entitling him to be a broadcaster. He can wait until after his contract with Fox is over to join the Raiders, or he can resign and give them back their money. I don’t understand why we’re-or they, rather-are jumping so far backwards just for him to be a voice on T.V. to begin with.
I’m glad that there will be strict restrictions, but I question the urgency for doing all this just for Brady. He made a choice that should eliminate him from contention. It seems like it will hurt the product. He might be great, but he might also be terrible. As we all expected, however, he’s getting special treatment. For anyone else, I highly doubt that this would be workable, and now the question becomes just how much we’ll excuse (or embrace) just because a guy has seven Super Bowl rings.
100.
I still think that when Carol Davis dies the estate tax that Mark Davis will owe on the Raiders Organization will be equal to the purchase price paid by Tom Brady. The team owners could very well be delaying the Brady purchase and setting these roadblocks to push everything out until the estate tax is due. Force Mark Davis to sell.
That’s a good detail that a lot of us non-Raider fans wouldn’t consider. Thanks for bringing that up.
Agree. Unfortunately, because it’s Brady (the alleged goat) and Fox.
I keep hoping unrealistically that some of the major sports (NFL, MLB, NCAA, etc.) will stop awarding any broadcast contracts to Fox. Let Fox broadcast MMA, WWE, NASCAR, bowling, fishing, cornhole, pickleball, SEC sports, overseas soccer, the UFL, XFL, or whatever it’s called these days.
WOW you really have a blind spot. There are bad announcers on every network. FOX doesn’t have the only bad ones. This is sports not politics. Because you lean so far left you can’t see much to the right. I am no Brady fan and have no idea about his politics and don’t care. Let it go delete all the FOX Chanel’s and you might be happy.
You’re right, every network has bad announcers. A strawman argument on your part. Or maybe check your reading comprehension?
Never said only Fox. Fox just happens to be the main network that can’t keep their political ideology out of a sports event broadcast in part because of who they hire as announcers, pundits, and their corporate mission statement. Disney is right behind them and can be just as bad. ESPN Sunday morning countdown is a shell of what it once was and has become a lousy show for most of its three hours.
Bottom line, Brady is receiving preferential treatment from Fox, the NFL, and some owners. In part, because of his ideology and Patriot (Kraft/Belicheck) background. I could be wrong? But, I doubt it.
I’ve been saying here and elsewhere since the day that job was announced that this was a bad idea. And now that the league has (correctly) imposed these restrictions on Brady, it’s an even worse idea.
Fox should tear up the contract and put Greg Olson back on the #1 team. Brady obviously can’t do the things necessary to be a color analyst = breach of contract. Or Brady can give up his quest to be an owner of an NFL team.
Toms a trustworthy guy full of integrity right?
I already called something like this when he signed that and tried to get a part of a team. No other team wants you spying and tampering with players. He needs to give up owning part of a team if he wants to be a broadcaster. Maybe he can buy a part of the Boston Celtics.
Brady is a part owner of Birmingham City FC, who fell so far last term they were relegated to the third division.
He told the team they should use thier hands. Can catch and throw better. Also football/soccer deflated balls are not good.
They forgot the biggest rule. He can’t talk. Now we are stuck listening to him.
If he is anything like Tony Romo is then I will straight up mute him. I love football with a passion but literally turned the channel last season to DIY Network during one of Romo’s love songs for Patrick Mahomes.
Wish the NFL would bring back professionally trained telecasters like the types of Al Micheals, Dick Enberg, and Howard Cossell rather than force feed us every recently retired self absorbed ex-NFL player to call games. I love Gronk and Steve Smith but I don’t really care to hear them speak ever again in my life.
Unfortunately over the past 20+ years, many of today’s announcers forget they’re on TV, can’t briefly stf*, and should occasionally just let the pictures/video tell the story. Along with too many seem to have gone to the early Gus Johnson (the Fox guy) school of announcing!
NFL bending the rules for Brady to make a boatload of money. Unbelievable
The first rule should be to take the doofus on his right for a grown up haircut
The NFL is willing to let Tom Brady become a servant of two masters — Mark Davis and Lachlan Murdoch. Davis’ Raiders were reamed by the Tuck Rule which is the NFL equivalent of the Montreal Screwjob. Murdoch sued a news site that named him an unindicted co-conspirator in the events of 1/6/2021.
Such is how things are fixed for the rich and powerful.
Also in part why certain teams are rarely seen on National Sunday televised games, SNF, or MNF. Yet teams like NE, Philadelphia, and Dallas are routinely broadcast nationally almost weekly.
New England had a home game vs. Kansas City flexed out of Monday Night Football last December. That’s what happens when an NFL team has a season that leads to 4-13.
It would’ve been easier for everyone to have the NFL not allow Brady into the Raiders facilities while a commentator. Fairly sure every single person who owns a share of a team doesn’t show up to their respective HQ regularly.
I can’t understand why these networks, who are cutting jobs left and right, would pay this much money for commentators when they’re pretty much all the same? And for the most part, I’m locked into RedZone so the only commentator I care about is Scott Hansen. Even when I’m watching my own team, I only put the sound up if it’s Ian Eagle. Everyone else (besides burkhardt and Olsen) stink