SBJ Football: Brady’s in for the long haul at Fox, agent says

Tom Brady has nine seasons left on his contract with Fox Sports, and he isn’t going anywhere, his agent told SBJ exclusively today. “Tom has had a tremendous amount of fun working with Fox this year, and he’s really excited about the future with Fox and his growth on their team,” Don Yee said. “And this year was the first year of a long relationship.”

I asked him directly: Does that mean he intends to fulfill the term of his contract? Yee: “Yes.”

Yee’s remarks come as commentary around Brady’s dual roles as broadcaster and 5% limited partner in the Raiders reaches a fever pitch during the coaching carousel/playoff season. He sits on the team’s coaching search committee, which has reportedly targeted Lions OC Ben Johnson as a top candidate, and is preparing to call the Lions-Commanders playoff game Saturday.

Much commentary has centered on the perceived conflict of interest, but speculation over Brady’s future at Fox is driven more by supposition around the simple demands on his time and interest. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch even predicted Brady wouldn’t make it to a second season in the broadcast booth, much less all 10.

The comments from Yee are noteworthy because Brady’s longtime agent keeps a low profile and has not spoken publicly about his client’s job at Fox until today. 

Raiders owner Mark Davis has said, “ I want Tom to have a huge voice,” and that Brady will be “somebody who can oversee the big picture.” But Davis also acknowledged in December that he would “not get in the way of Tom’s job.”

Brady is one of several committee members on the coaching search, and NFL policy prohibits him from becoming a Raiders employee. A new coach/GM tandem would presumably expect to call their own shots. So despite the picture being painted in the desert, it’s fair to wonder how much time Brady will really give to the Raiders in the long term, especially in light of Yee’s remarks. 

The NFL’s search for a new general counsel is reaching final stages, and owners hope to have an offer extended and accepted in time for the March league meetings, sources tell me.

Most if not all serious candidates still in the running come from outside the industry. That’s not exactly a surprise -- the NFL increasingly sees itself without a true peer in sports, and the toughest challenges facing its execs are more akin to those found in entertainment/events/IP multinationals than teams and leagues.

Longtime GC and top Roger Goodell lieutenant Jeff Pash announced his retirement-- upon the selection of a successor -- last May.

The Packers are the latest NFL team to reinforce fandom with a feature film, another data point for strategists who think TV/film production could be the next big frontier for NFL business growth. The team hosted the red-carpet premiere of “Green and Gold” at the Lambeau Field atrium earlier this month and is helping promote the film ahead of its national release on Jan. 31.

The movie tells the story of a troubled family dairy farm in Wisconsin during the Packers’ resurgence in the 1990s. Family patriarch Buck -- played by Craig T. Nelson -- literally bets the farm on the Packers in the Super Bowl while his granddaughter struggles with forces pulling her away from her roots. “This movie’s going to be really popular,” said Packers President Mark Murphy. “It tugs at the heartstrings.” 

The movie was produced three years ago independently of the club and only made a formal sponsorship deal with the team within the last six months, ensuring alignment on IP use and promotional cooperation. But it works as a community relations vehicle for the nonprofit Packers and a fan development tool, Murphy said. “We’re a community-owned team, so for us supporting and promoting the local community is a top priority,” he said.

In 2024, the Chiefs partnered with the Hallmark Channel to produce “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” but the team took on an active role in every detail of production and promotion.

If other teams are looking for ways to promote their important role in fans' lives through fiction without quite the same level of commitment, looking for ways to emulate the Packers’ approach might make sense. “This really came up through our sales and marketing division, and we thought it made a lot of sense,” Murphy said. “But it wasn’t a heavy lift for us.”

• Jack Easterby’s rapid, unconventional rise in the NFL world was undeniably fascinating to league insiders, and it sparked questions about his experience, ambition and tactics. Two years after being fired by the Texans, Easterby’s biggest defenders, like Bill Belichick, still believe he is a brilliant exec, quickly able to identify and address organizational challenges in workplaces. I profiled Easterby in this week's SBJ as he hopes for a second act in major sports.

• Beyond the NFL taking up a large chunk of the top 100 telecasts of 2024, the league accounted for 126 spots (with one of those being the first round of the draft) within the top 200, notes SBJ's Austin Karp. That’s down from 137 NFL spots in 2023 amid an Olympic and presidential election year.

• WME Football will be split off from WME but retain its name, similar to how IMG Academy has kept the IMG branding despite no longer being affiliated with the parent business, sources tell my colleague Chris Smith.

• Blowouts were not kind to the viewership numbers for the NFL Wild Card round. Karp breaks down how each game did.

• The NFL and Bleacher Report have a three-year content deal that gives the TNT Sports digital property and its House of Highlights subsidiary access to NFL game footage, as well as access to NFL tentpole events like the Super Bowl, Draft and Combine, reports SBJ's Mollie Cahillane.

• NFL team sponsors are looking for playoff payoffs this weekend, with a variety of activations surrounding the Divisional Round, writes SBJ's Terry Lefton. One that stood out to me: Bud Light is sponsoring a Lions bus tour this week that’s covered most of the state of Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.

• Ticketmaster signed on as the first founding sponsor of the Bills’ new Highmark Stadium scheduled to open for the 2026 season, the team said.