Football legend Tom Brady plans to start his sportscasting duties for Fox in the fall of 2024, the retired athlete revealed during an interview Monday of Fox Sports 1.
Brady’s arrival had previously been uncertain, particularly after he announced his retirement at the end of the NFL’s 2022 season, then reneged.
He is expected to call NFL games with Kevin Burkhardt, the Fox Sports announcer whose role was recently elevated after the exit of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
Brady “will not only call our biggest NFL games with Kevin Burkhardt, but will also serve as an ambassador for us, particularly with respect to client and promotional initiatives,” Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch told investors in May of last year.
Brady’s hire represents the latest in a flurry of big talent changes for major football broadcasts. All the TV networks with NFL rights are looking to woo bigger audiences after agreeing to substantial hikes in the licensing fees they will pay the league National Football League under a new 11-year pact that keeps the bulk of professional-football telecasts under the purview of the big traditional TV broadcasters. Al Michaels left his longtime perch at NBC Sports to lead Amazon’s new “Thursday Night Football” and Mike Tirico inherited his role at NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” Fox, meanwhile, parted ways with Buck and Aikman in March after ESPN wooed them away to lead “Monday Night Football.”