Many professional athletes have attempted to make the leap from the play on the field to the role in the broadcast. Very few have had the success on the field of play as Tom Brady, which led to an even bigger spotlight when the seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback signed a 10-year, $375 million contract with FOX Sports in 2024. Few people know Brady as well as Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and journalist Jim Gray, who has hosted Brady for exclusive interviews via Westwood One for many years, and more recently with the Let’s Go podcast for SiriusXM radio.
Gray recently partnered with Brady on the opening of the Hall of Excellence, a museum of iconic artifacts from sports and entertainment now being showcased at the Fontainebleau Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Many items from Brady’s legendary playing career are now on display for the viewing public to see, while Brady enters his second year with FOX Sports’ top NFL broadcasting team.
“He was excellent, and I’d say he incrementally got better as time went on,” said Gray of Brady’s first year in the broadcast booth for FOX Sports. “Nobody knows more football. Nobody has the resume and the ability. All of that is what he excels at. The other stuff is what he got better at, and I think he was excellent.”
Following his second retirement from the NFL, Brady took a year off to prepare for his role with FOX Sports. During that time, Brady was working in collaboration with Gray on building a roster of memorabilia to house in the Hall of Excellence—an idea which came about from a conversation Gray had with Brady during an interview following Brady breaking another NFL record during his playing days.
“I said what do you do with all this stuff. He said, ‘I put it in my closet, and I’ve got a storage bin at a warehouse,’” recalled Gray of the conversation with Brady. “I said we should put all this together, let the public see it and open a museum and call it the Hall of Excellence. He said that’s a good idea.”
How the Hall of Excellence Began To Become Reality
The name of the museum stemmed from a conversation Gray had with his friend and mentor Al Davis, who owned the Los Angeles Raiders at the time. Davis desired to build a Raiders hall of fame to honor the legacy of his franchise, which Gray suggested should be called the Hall of Excellence based on Davis’ team credo during his time with the franchise.
Brady was approved as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders organization in October of last year, owning roughly a 5% stake in the team while working as an analyst for FOX Sports. Ownership of the Hall of Excellence memorabilia is also attached to Brady, who along with Gray personally owns 60–70% of the artifacts displayed. The remaining items were donated by private collectors, the athletes themselves, or by each sport’s hall of fame—minus the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
“The only hall of fame we have not worked with was Cooperstown because of the stuff we already have,” noted Gray, along with the limited space they have for the Hall of Excellence at the Fontainebleau. “We didn’t feel like we had to call Cooperstown, so I never made a call to them. The understanding that I have is these hall of fame’s storage is so vast that they only display 10 to 20% of what they have.”
The Hall of Excellence features 310 artifacts, spread across 26 themed display cases and a handful of freestanding showpieces. Some of the last items added to the haul were golf balls signed by Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as well as a signed jersey of Washington Capitals legend Alexander Ovechkin from the night he broke Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals scored record. As for Brady, he donated all his Super Bowl championship rings, on top of his ring for winning the 2000 Orange Bowl over Alabama.
The museum will be a permanent fixture at the Fontainebleau, along with a number of its artifacts permanently displayed. For items that are personally owned by those who donated, they will remain displayed as long as the owners allow. However, the museum—already in its infancy—has received multiple offers to have additional items be put on display.
“Tom’s already had a few calls from some great legends of wanting to be included,” said Gray. “When you call up and say Tom Brady is your partner, it opens every door. His involvement is he has all his stuff in here. He had the vision, and he was diligent in making sure that we’re at this place. We are at the Fontainebleau because of Tom. He’s very involved. He’s not calling Graceland for the 910th time, but he’s extremely involved—as involved as you can be as a partner.”
As Gray noted Brady’s involvement with securing the location at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, in planning the location for the Hall of Excellence, there were a couple of options Brady and Gray were scouting out to house the exhibit.
“We considered a lot of places, but we thought that this would be the best place,” said Gray. “We had an opportunity on the [National] Mall in Washington, D.C., and some others. But this is the best place because here we’re one of one. If you’re on the [National] Mall, you’re one of many.”
A Unique Guide Through History
The dynamics of what makes a tour through the Hall of Excellence in Las Vegas unique includes narration throughout the museum by signature voices such as Morgan Freeman, Oprah Winfrey, Doc Emrick, Jim Nantz, and Marv Albert, among others. Some of the biggest names in entertainment and sports play-by-play guide you through the moments that made history to be displayed.
During his career, Gray has served as witness to some of the greatest moments in sports, securing some of the most memorable interviews surrounding the events. When asked if there was a moment during his Hall of Fame career that he would consider for showcase in the Hall of Excellence, Gray suggested a moment that many would consider not an excellent moment.
“It was an excellent moment for me, but it would not be in there, but it is noted in a photograph [in the hall],” suggested Gray. “The [Mike] Tyson ear biting, because that was something that never happened before. It probably will never happen again with a heavyweight champion. The fact that I knew at that moment, when this happened, we didn’t have the Internet in the way that we have it today. I knew in that moment that this interview was going to be played forever. So, I better not screw it up, and fortunately I didn’t.”
That interview with Mike Tyson from 1997 won Jim Gray one of his twelve national Emmy Awards for journalism and reporting, and was awarded the Broadcast of the Year Award following the interview by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. A standard that Gray set for his Hall of Fame career—spanning nearly five decades—is now setting a new standard in showcasing the history and legacy of sports and entertainment with the Hall of Excellence in Las Vegas.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
