Even in retirement, Tom Brady is busier than ever. Recently approved for partial ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders, Brady is in his first season as an analyst on FOX Sports, where he is calling NFL games as part of the network’s “A” broadcasting team. In addition, Brady’s ex-wife, the Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen, is due to give birth to her third child — and her first without Brady — early next year.
Brady’s career as a broadcaster did not get off to the smoothest of starts. As an NFL owner, Brady is barred from being too critical of teams and players — although as a seven-time Super Bowl champion, fans want to hear from Brady when they flip to a game he’s calling. That dichotomy has created a tense situation that is poised to come to a head in the near future.
Will Brady leave FOX?
According to a prominent NFL insider, a “theory” going around the NFL centers on Brady’s intriguing future plans: he may want to step away from broadcasting after only one season.
That is according to veteran NFL reporter Mike Florio, best known as the owner of Pro Football Talk. Listening through the NFL grapevine, Florio indicated on a podcast recently that Brady’s dual role as a color commentator and as a minority stakeholder in the historic Raiders franchise is stretching the legendary quarterback too thin — and eventually, something has to give.
“You think of how thinly he’s spread, all of the different things that he’s doing, it may not be that he wants to be the absolute best at everything he does,” Florio said on “The Varsity” podcast. “It may just be that he wants us to think he’s the absolute best at everything that he does, and he’s doing a lot of different things and he’s making a lot of different appearances and he’s making a lot of money.”
Brady‘s net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $300 million and $350 million; FOX still owes him more than $300 million over the next nine years of his contract with the network. Thanks to a slew of other sponsorship deals, whatever Brady decides to do, he will never be hurting financially; and his influence over the NFL will remain high, likely long after his retirement and potential exit from the broadcaster’s booth.
“Him being an owner and him being a broadcaster I think it keeps him from being the absolute best he could ever be. And it just always seemed beneath him – he’s Tom Brady,” Florio said. “I just wonder how many years he’ll continue to do it.”
