Eli Manning spoke with Brian Giuffra of The Big Lead today to promote Yahoo! Sports Watch Together. Giuffra was curious about the former QB’s interest in the broadcasting world. Manning answered that at this point, he hasn’t really thought about what his next chapter looks like. As far as broadcasting goes, he isn’t ready to aggressively pursue anything.
“I think it’s really a time to, not be adventurous, but dabble in a few different fields and see what interest is there from both sides,” Manning said.
Eli’s older brother Peyton Manning has been a white whale for networks since his retirement. Most recently, ESPN attempted to lure Peyton Manning into the broadcast booth for Monday Night Football.
While Eli has not drawn that kind of interest, the Manning last name will always be intriguing to network executives. The fact that Eli is a two-time Super Bowl winner that played in the country’s largest media market certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Those factors make it hard to completely write off a future in the media. For his immediate future though, Giuffra writes that Eli just doesn’t seem interested in broadcasting. He even points out that Eli hasn’t committed to showing up on his oldest brother Cooper’s pre-taped segments for FOX this season.
Manning says he has a lot of questions about himself and what a broadcast schedule would be before he would even know if it is a career path he’d want to pursue. He specifically said that he isn’t sure how much he would want to work and how often he would want to be away from home. He would be more open to entering a booth on a trial basis before he would know if it is a post-playing life he wants.
