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Tom Brady To Join Fox Sports As Lead NFL Analyst Following Career

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Following his playing career, quarterback Tom Brady will be joining Fox Sports as their lead NFL analyst. While the terms of Brady’s contract were not disclosed, the New York Post reported it to be a 10-year, $375 million deal.

It’s quite a historic contract on multiple levels if the report is accurate. Over his career, Brady earned over $302 million. He’s set to earn $15 million in 2022, meaning he’ll make $58 million more while sitting in a booth. Brady will also earn $7 million more annually than broadcaster Jim Rome, who makes $30 million a year.

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However, Fox corporate spokesman Brian Nick has disputed the report of Brady’s deal and value. “What has been reported isn’t an accurate description of the deal and we have not released details beyond what was disclosed on our quarterly earnings call,” Nick said.

The signing of Brady was first announced Tuesday by Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch during a corporate investors call. Brady will call games alongside play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt, and work as an “ambassador” with respect to “client and promotional initiatives.”

The real question now is when Brady will finally quit. The 44-year-old announced his retirement in January, only to return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers two months later for his 23rd season. Given his competitive nature, one could assume Brady wasn’t happy with last season’s divisional round loss.

For Fox Sports, meanwhile, the coup of Brady is a huge — and necessary — one. The company lost announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast this offseason, with Burkhardt replacing Buck.

The New York Post added that ESPN also showed interest in adding Brady to its broadcasting group, though given its star-studded cast of announcers, there wouldn’t have been much room for Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion. While Brady continues to play, former All-Pro tight end Greg Olson will work alongside Burkhardt as an analyst.

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That shift in announcers was just one of many happening this offseason. Elsewhere, Al Michaels left NBC and Sunday Night Football to join Kirk Herbstreit on Amazon Prime’s new exclusive coverage of Thursday Night Football. Of course, given Tom Brady’s name recognition, his announcement certainly the biggest splash of them all and could help Fox to bring in more viewers down the line.

Brady also represents just the latest quarterback to step into the broadcasting world. Former Dallas Cowboy Tony Romo joined CBS Sports back in 2017. He turned into a masterful game-caller, and is now earning $18 million per year, the third-highest mark among sports broadcasters. On opposing channels, brothers Peyton and Eli Manning teamed up on ESPN’s well-received “Manningcast” broadcast for Monday Night Football, while Drew Brees joined NBC for Sunday Night football.

Certainly, the NFL — and those calling it — reign supreme on television. The league made up 75 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts in 2021, with the Super Bowl (91.63 million viewers) sitting in the top spot. Fox is set to broadcast two of the next three Super Bowls.

Over his career, Brady has thrown for 624 touchdowns and 84,520 passing year (both NFL records) and shows no signs of slowing down. Last year, the three-time MVP threw for 43 touchdowns and a league-leading 5,316 yards against just 12 interceptions, registering a 102.1 quarterback rating.

Climate Experts Worried About Misinformation On Fox News’ 24-Hour Weather Channel 

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Fox News Media announced that they would be launching their own weather channel this year, an announcement that has many climate experts worried considering how often Fox News reporters criticize science and spreads misinformation regarding climate change. 

Fox Weather will be “a 24-hour channel devoted to all things meteorological, providing cutting-edge display technology with forecasting experts surrounding every major weather event,” according to the press release from Fox Media. 

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Over the years, hosts on Fox News have consistently undermined the idea that climate change caused by human activity is an actual issue worth fighting for. So the fact that the same company that owns that outlet which hires journalists who ignore the actual scientific facts of what global warming is, is creating a weather channel, has many worried. 

“Fox News has access to and is highly trusted by a wide range of conservative Americans – which is precisely the audience that least well understands the serious threats that climate change poses to the safety, security and health of all Americans,” said Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.

“If Fox chooses to inform viewers about the realities of climate change and its impacts on the weather, it could be a game changer. Conversely, if it opts to perpetuate misinformation to advance political goals, it will be a huge disservice to all Americans.”

Last year Fox News host Tucker Carlson discussed how all the forest and wildfires the west coast has endured within the past two years were not caused by climate change. Carlson’s colleague Laura Ingraham also doubled-down on this ideology by insisting that the planet has a “natural cycle of warming, and climate activists like Greta Thunberg have been brainwashed, and the left’s obsession with climate is a political tool.” 

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“The danger of Fox News running a weather channel is that if they pervert news about the weather anything like how they’ve perverted news about climate change and energy politics, millions of Americans will be further misled about this crisis,” said Geoffrey Supran, research fellow at Harvard University’s department of the history of science.

“It’s been shown that the most important predictors of public support for climate action are understanding that this crisis is real, human-caused, serious and solvable.”

“If Fox News Media’s weather channel downplays the links between global warming and extreme weather, it will only solidify their viewers’ existing biases against climate action. Fox News has been a powerful engine of climate misinformation for years – so powerful, in fact, that its influence has been named the ‘Fox News Effect’,” Maibach said.

“One of our studies showed that before Fox News began its attack on the Green New Deal, most conservatives supported its core policy proposals. Six months later – after Fox had relentlessly attacked it and its sponsors – support for those proposals dropped to near zero among frequent Fox viewers.”

“I don’t expect that Fox News will change its ways or its views about climate change anytime soon, but Fox Weather has the opportunity to get the facts right. Let’s hope it chooses to,” Maibach said.