Tom Brady’s wind-swept, sad-eyed retirement video has forced the entire sports-media industrial complex to fall back on the conditional tense, a grammatical construct that allows for breezy speculation and a whole lot of “ifs” and “perhapses.” The frenzied conjecture about Brady’s future—specifically, as it relates to his $375 million broadcast deal with Fox—will remain with us at least until the 45-year-old discusses his plans with the network brass … a thing that hasn’t happened yet.
Fox caught wind of Brady’s encore valediction at about the same time the rest of us did, which adds a layer of complexity to the already-knotty business of preparing to stage a Super Bowl broadcast. At the moment, there are no plans to include Brady in the on-air festivities, an omission consistent with Fox’s original run of schedule, which was issued on Jan. 31.
Which is to say, Brady is not expected to pop up in a pre- or post-game hit, and for obvious reasons, he’s not going to appear as part of a surprise three-man booth. Even to suggest such a scenario comes at the risk of being carted off to the local madhouse. Best to reserve any radical broadcast experiments for one of the tens of thousands of sporting events that isn’t expected to generate upwards of $500 million in ad revenue while 110 million Americans are tuned in.
Again, this is all as new to Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks & Co. as it is for everyone else with so much as a dial-up connection and a functional nervous system, but by all means, feel free to daydream about what may happen between now and the Feb. 12 kickoff. For today, let’s turn our attention to Greg Olsen, who approaches his first shot at calling a Super Bowl knowing full well it may be his last—at least as a member of the Fox Sports family.
Olsen joined Fox as an analyst in January 2021, following a 14-year career as a standout tight end. After a season of calling Fox’s regional games, Olsen was elevated to the network’s NFL A-team in May, joining play-by-play vet Kevin Burkhardt. (A few months earlier, Burkhardt was promoted to the national booth, where he took over the top job from the departed Joe Buck.)
In his short time as part of Fox’s power battery, Olsen has been outstanding, and he ratcheted his coverage up to an even higher level during the playoffs. While at least one high-profile NFL broadcaster now seems content to squawk like a chicken on speed, Olsen has weaponized his bone-deep understanding of the game into what amounts to a laser-targeted delivery system for pertinent information. Olsen traffics in facts rather than goofy zingers and oracular proclamations; perhaps the best example of his work arrived in the closing seconds of the divisional round clash between the Cowboys and 49ers, when he explained why the clock continued to wind despite the fact that the Dallas receiver had been forced out of bounds after a clutch reception.
Olsen has excelled in what some media types have characterized as a glorified seat-warming exercise, but Brady’s decision to hang up the pads is all but certain to bring an end to Fox’s top broadcast team. Unless Brady has a change of heart and decides to leave a whole ton of cash on the table in order to devote his time and energies to, say, his TB12 nutrition hustle, it’s a matter of when, not if. Olsen knows this. It’s been something that has been lingering on the breeze like the smell of a rich man’s Uggs since Brady inked his multimillion-dollar deal with Fox last spring.
Which isn’t to say that he’s psyched about the prospect of being knocked out of the job. Just last week, he said as much during an appearance on ESPN’s Chicago radio affiliate. “Listen, if Brady ends up retiring … and that’s how everything unfolds, it sucks,” Olsen said. “But at the end of the day I’m a big boy. I know what I signed up for.
“You know, I took a chance on myself, I rolled the dice,” Olsen continued. “We’ll see how it plays out. … I’m going to enjoy these last couple weeks. They’ve been busy, but they’ve been a blast. And then whatever happens in the offseason—listen, I hope Brady signs a five-year deal with somebody. I’ll be the first guy there, I’ll give ’em some cap room to make it work. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.”
Olsen will continue working games regardless of how things shake out with Brady, and when the time comes to surrender his seat—and no, Fox isn’t going to start the seven-time Super Bowl champ on the No. 4 squad, where he’d be calling Bears-Cardinals games for a handful of regional affiliates—he’ll move down to the No. 2 unit. He’s already made a case for a starring role elsewhere, although in the wake of the Great NFL Broadcast Shakeout of 2022, the top analyst jobs have been locked in with long-term deals.
Olsen has said that his preseason goal was to try to do the best job he could, while giving fans a fun, informative listen. He also said that he hoped to use his role as a means to provide a different perspective on the game. He’s succeeded on all counts. Unfortunately, unless Brady is channeling Lucy Van Pelt and pulls the football away again at the last second, the newly retired QB’s next big announcement will knock Olsen down a rung.
In the meantime, Olsen’s got a job to do. A trail of seismic disruption followed in the wake of Brady’s announcement; from the moment the 50-second clip went live on Wednesday morning, it managed to upend everything from ESPN’s Mike and the Mad Dog reunion stunt to the box office projections for the geriatric buddy comedy 80 for Brady. While Brady’s timing was less than ideal, Olsen is said to have absorbed the impact without flinching. Shortly after Brady’s Instagram started lighting up, Olsen went back to watching film.
