Tom Brady’s eventual move to the broadcast booth with Fox will reportedly come with some significant financial consequences for current top analyst Greg Olsen.
According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Olsen will be knocked down to the No. 2 analyst spot at the network when Brady, who announced his retirement at the start of this month, decides to begin his on-air role. While that had been widely anticipated, Olsen will also take a drastic salary cut as a result of Brady’s move.
Marchand reports that Olsen will see his annual salary at Fox drop from $10 million to $3 million when he falls to the No. 2 role. If Brady had taken over this spot this year, Olsen’s contract would have gone from $50 million over the next five years to $22 million.
Brady ultimately returned for one final season with the Buccaneers, meaning that Olsen will now earn $29 million over the next five years, at worst.
Last summer, Brady and Fox agreed to a 10-year, $375 million deal for the seven-time Super Bowl champion to take over as the network’s lead NFL analyst following his retirement. The 45-year-old recently told soon-to-be Fox colleague Colin Cowherd that he doesn’t plan on beginning his broadcast gig until the fall of 2024.
Olsen spoke candidly late last month about Brady’s impending move into his current role, revealing that he would be disappointed to get bumped down out of the top spot but that he “knew what he signed up for.”
“We all know the reality. I know what I signed up for this year,” Olsen said on ESPN 1000. “My goal, and I said this before the season even started, was to try to do the best job that I could. Give people a fun listen. Give people maybe a different perspective and insight into the game.
“Listen, if Brady ends up retiring and coming and decides that’s how everything unfolds, it sucks. But at the end of the day I’m a big boy. I took a chance on myself. Rolled the dice. We’ll see how it plays out.”
