Brad Zager, president of programming and production for Fox Sports, said he is not questioning Tom Brady’s possible conflict of interest as part of the broadcast team for Saturday’s divisional round playoff game between the Detroit Lions and the Washington Commanders. It’s ridiculous.”
Brady is also a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and is a member of the team’s coaching decision-making team. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is the top candidate.
This, combined with the NFL’s implementation of the “Brady Rule” restricting regular pregame broadcast activities by television analysts, brought Brady into sharper focus under the microscope.
“To me, questioning someone’s integrity to say there’s a conflict of interest is ridiculous and it’s shameful,” Zager told The Athletic.
Zager gave several examples of what he considers conflicts of interest in the small world of sportscasting. Among them, Zager mentioned ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit. Zager added that Herbstreit has “earned a position at the top of the industry.” Zager also pointed to Joe Davis, the Fox MLB play-by-play announcer who is the voice of the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
“Is there a conflict of interest when Kirk Herbstreit called up Ohio State for the national championship game on Monday night?” Zager said of Herbstreit, who played at Ohio State. “Was there a conflict of interest in Joe Davis calling the Dodgers to the World Series?
“For someone to say there’s a conflict of interest in that Tom Brady can’t get in the booth and call a Lions game, there’s a lot of potential in the Raiders’ coaching search, maybe from Detroit, maybe from Washington,” he said. Because it could probably include people from any team” — since they haven’t hired anyone yet — I question his sincerity. It calls into question his professionalism. I don’t understand it on any level. ”
There is precedent for minority shareholders calling games, such as Grant Hill, who owns stock in the Atlanta Hawks and is an analyst for TNT Sports.
Fox Sports has adopted a Bill Belichick style of reporting on Brady’s performance. Fox Sports executives had not been available for interviews all season until Zager’s comments. Neither Brady nor his partner Kevin Burkhardt will be there.
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Tom Brady signs Fox NFL broadcast deal despite growing role with Raiders
With Fox broadcasting this year’s Super Bowl and speculation rife about whether Brady will stick to his 10-year, $375 million contract and a possible conflict with the Raiders, Fox and Brady’s team is on the verge of losing ground. He is trying to erase any reports that seem to be happening.
On Thursday, Brady’s agent Don Yee told Sports Business Journal that Brady will return to the booth next season. Zager spoke to The Athletic by phone on Friday. Next week, Brady will likely appear on FS1’s Colin Cowherd to discuss his future.
“Based on all the conversations we’ve had with Tom Brady, our expectation is that he’s going to be here for a really, really long time, which is a lot at this point,” Zager said.
Brady’s situation is complicated by his minority stake with the Raiders. Brady is not allowed to participate in pregame production meetings, which prevents normal pregame interactions. While Zager emphasized that he considers these meetings important, he doesn’t think Brady’s absence from them hurt him.
“I think he’s still getting all the information and preparing at the highest level for every game,” Zager said.
Brady replaced Greg Olsen as Burkhardt’s partner. Two years ago, Burkhardt and Olsen received rave reviews for their performance in the Super Bowl. Burkhardt and Brady will travel from New Orleans to play in three weeks. Zager feels like Brady continues to improve each week, especially in the late innings and in close games.
“From the moment he signed with us, going back over two years, he has been the ultimate teammate, fully involved in preparing us to do his job and fully committed to everything we do throughout the season and week to week. “It’s been a really high level week,” Zager said.
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