In The Room: The Tom Brady Conundrum

Happy Friday, I'm Dylan Byers. Welcome back to In The Room, my biweekly private email on the inner workings of the media industry.
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Happy Friday, I'm Dylan Byers.

Welcome back to In The Room, my biweekly private email on the inner workings of the media industry. Tonight, we turn our attention to the logic and illogic behind Tom Brady's $375-million megadeal with Fox—and what Lachlan Murdoch might be seeing that his critics aren't.

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The Tom Brady Conundrum

Is Tom Brady worth nearly $400 million as a broadcaster? The critics say no. But, they also concede, what is Fox without the N.F.L.—and, ergo, without him?

DYLAN BYERS

Lachlan Murdoch kicked off Fox's quarterly earnings call this week with a surprise, ace-in-the-hole talent announcement, the kind of news that a media executive relishes having the opportunity to make public: Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl winner and the greatest quarterback in the history of the N.F.L., would be joining Fox Sports as its lead analyst “immediately following his playing career, whenever that may be.” Brady, of course, retired and then un-retired this winter, but most presume this will be his final season. In August, he will turn 45, which he has long suggested was the age he wanted to play until.

The news understandably upended the worlds of sport and media, culminating with a report in the New York Post, that other Murdoch organ, that the deal was a 10-year agreement to the tune of $375 million in overall compensation. It’s a figure that, as has now been widely noted, eclipses the $322 million that Brady has made over the course of his 20-plus year N.F.L. career...

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