TV Networks in Hot Pursuit of Tom Brady as NFL Broadcaster

According to Front Office Sports, a number of outlets that will be broadcasting the NFL during the 2022 season and beyond are hoping Tom Brady will take a break from his subtle spitting match with the Patriots and hop in the booth or studio as the rookie star of a broadcast team.

Agents for Brady, who was eliminated from the playoffs when the Buccaneers lost to the Los Angeles Rams on January 23 but waited until earlier this week to announce his retirement, were approached about the 44-year-old possibly doing TV for the 2022 season immediately following Tampa Bay’s defeat.

Outlets including Fox, ESPN and Amazon, which takes over Thursday Night Football from Fox starting next season, all reached out to Brady’s camp, per FOS. To land the seven-time Super Bowl champion, if he’s even interested in doing TV, it may require one of the networks to hand out the richest contract in sports broadcasting history and pay Brady a salary that would “blow [Tony] Romo’s out of the water,” according to a source. Romo of CBS currently makes $18 million per year as sports media’s highest-paid broadcaster.

“Brady would be worth his weight in gold. The opening bid would be $20 million a year — and it could go as high as $25 million,” the source told FOS. “That would be for either games or the studio. There’s no way in hell Brady would make less than Romo.”

Represented by WME’s Jason Hodes and longtime NFL agent Don Yee, the five-time Super Bowl MVP should be prepared for “an all-out blitz by every company with an NFL interest” and could command an eight-figure pact for a multi-year deal, a second source told FOS.

Before making his retirement official, Brady said he wanted to spend more time with his family, including his wife Gisele Bündchen and their children.

“I’m gonna spend some time with them and give them what they need, because they’ve really been giving me what I need the last six months — to do what I need to do and I said this a few years ago. It’s what relationships are all about. It’s not always about what I want. It’s about what we want as a family,” Brady told Jim Gray on his SiriusXM podcast Let’s Go. “I’m gonna spend a lot of time with them and figure out in the future what’s next.”

While it seems somewhat unlikely that Brady’s future will include TV, he’ll have to at least consider it if a network gives him 25 million reasons to.