Before his first game as a TV color commentator for CBS in 1979, the late John Madden—universally regarded as the best NFL analyst of all time—was told by his producers that broadcast crews typically did not watch the practices of the teams they were covering that upcoming Sunday. The PR reps from each team would meet with the broadcast crew to share any insights and storylines.
“Nope,” said Madden. “I’ll talk to the coaches.”
Within six months of Madden’s pronouncement, talking to coaches and players—and watching practices—became standard operating procedure across the NFL for broadcast prep. And this tradition has continued to this day.
This season, however, one highly visible analyst, who happens to be the lead color commentator for Fox Sports, broadcaster of this season’s Super Bowl, can’t partake in this valuable pre-game reporting process. He also happens to be the greatest football player of all time.
Given his status as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, which was approved by the league on Tuesday, Tom Brady, who is earning $375 million from Fox for a broadcasting job, will face restrictions that mean he won’t be able to prep for his role with the same vigor and rigor that Madden, the standard-bearer of this business, could.
Which is a loss for football fans. Because if Brady could apply his work ethic to his Fox broadcaster role in the same manner as he did as a player, he could be great.
We, as viewers, deserve the full Tom Brady.
Brady, who has received mixed performance reviews on his broadcasts so far, now has a material financial interest in the Raiders, thanks to his 5% stake, and Forbes’ latest valuation of the team came in at $6.7 billion. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest in this uncharted dual lead analyst/owner role, and the possibility that he could pass along trade secrets, Brady cannot attend broadcast production meetings with players and coaches, in person or virtually, or have access to…
