Football fans packed Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. to watch the home opener for the New England Patriots as they took on the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles, officially commencing the 2023 National Football League regular season. Regaling their former quarterback, Tom Brady, who led the team to six Super Bowl championships and national attention, was also part of the festivities in a special halftime ceremony carried by CBS Sports.
Brady, who had played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the previous three seasons, had not donned a Patriots jersey in public since his final game on the field. Seeing him deliver his signature fist pump and eliciting the roar of the crowd was a sight for sore eyes for many Patriots zealots, shortly after it was announced that he would be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in June.
Brady will be taking over the lead analyst role in the NFL on FOX broadcast booth next season in the first season of a 10-year pact worth a reported $375 million. Greg Olsen, a former NFL tight end, was named to the position last year and worked his first Super Bowl alongside new play-by-play voice Kevin Burkhardt, a game that ended up breaking viewership records. The new broadcast booth has received largely positive feedback, and there are some critics who believe FOX should not break it up. Adding a voice as accomplished and knowledgeable as Brady, however, is seen by others as a dereliction of duty to provide fans the best sound and insight each week.
Olsen reportedly came close to joining Inside the NFL on The CW to pair with his FOX analyst role and was expected to ink a contract had the network not blocked the move. As for next year, he is not entirely sure what will happen, but fully understands that it remains a considerable storyline within sports media circles.
“I try not to live in a fantasy land and lie to myself,” Olsen said in a recent interview with Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. “All I can do is try to be as good as humanly possible and make it very difficult for [FOX Sports management]…. I’d be doing those guys a disservice and I’m doing myself and my team a disservice if I went into it half-assed that I’m just a placeholder until Brady comes in and takes my spot.”
Indeed, Olsen is viewing this season as an audition and hopes to make the most of every opportunity he has on the air. After all, he was named the winner of the Sports Emmy award for “Outstanding Sports Personality/Emerging On-Air Talent” this past May. At the moment, the No. 2 broadcast booth behind Burkhardt and Olsen is the combination of Joe Davis and Daryl Johnston, who are also entering their second season working together. If Olsen ends up moving to the No. 2 booth, his salary would reportedly drop from $10 million to $3 million annually.
“We’re going to call the games the way we see it, which I think people, as the year went on, people started to appreciate,” Olsen said. “….So I’m going to do that until they tell me I’m no longer in this position. Then when that time comes, we’ll figure out what the next steps are. As we sit here right now, my mindset is I’m doing games this year and hopefully beyond.”
It remains unknown whether FOX would consider going to a three-person lead booth with Burkhardt, Olsen and Brady starting next season, something that was once common within NFL circles. Within the ongoing regular season though, the second-year NFL on FOX lead analyst is focused on the weekly elements he can control. Even so, Olsen’s agent is under the presumption that he will remain with FOX Sports next year in the No. 2 booth.
