Angelica Ciulla •August 28, 2025 11:50 AM EDT

Angelica Ciulla • August 28, 2025 11:50 APM EDT NFL lifts broadcasting restrictions on former NFL QB and Raiders owner Tom Brady

Tom Brady in the Booth: Insight or Inside Information?

 As all football fans know, Tom Brady is a massive name in the NFL. This 7x Super Bowl Champion and 5x MVP has been acknowledged as the greatest of all time. He has broken several records, including most Pro Bowl appearances (15), most games started by a quarterback, being the only player in history to achieve 100,000 total passing yards, most playoff wins by a quarterback, most passing touchdowns the list goes on.

The star quarterback retired from the NFL on February 1, 2023. His infamous name stayed out of the headlines for a while, that was until September 8, 2024, when Fox Network announced fans would see this future Hall of Famer in the broadcast booth. One month later, word got out that Tom Brady became a partial owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. Due to this being a conflict of interest, the NFL put restrictions on Tom Brady’s broadcasting. Some of these restrictions included Tom Brady not being allowed to enter team facilities, attend practices, participate in production meetings, and being banned from meeting with players and coaches. 

These rules and restrictions seemed like a great solution to the issue of being an owner and announcer, and the rules made sense at the time. After all, what is to stop an owner of 1 team from finding out information, routes, playcalls, etc., and exposing them for another team’s benefit, especially if there are meetings and interviews being held with coaches and staff? These rules were put in place to protect all teams from the risk of exposing confidential documentation that is in place. This leads me to 1 massive question. What is the NFL thinking by easing up on these restrictions?

As of August 28, 2025, the NFL lifted the ban on Tom Brady that prevented him from participating in production meetings with NFL teams, including broadcast meetings and meetings with coaches and players. At these meetings, sensitive information such as insight into team strategies, injury updates, player roles, behind-the-scenes stories, and conversations between players and coaches gets revealed. This even includes exclusive details on new plans of action in the upcoming weeks. Tom Brady still remains prohibited from attending team practices or entering the team’s facilities; however, this screams “risk of anti-tampering policy”. 

Why did these rules change? Brady was temporarily restricted during Super Bowl LIX, showing that the rules could be “flexible”. Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, even went as far as saying this was a “natural step forward” to improve the commentary without compromising fairness. In other words, the people want to see more Tom Brady. Viewers love Tom Brady’s insight due to his history in the NFL. 

Having Tom Brady as a broadcaster is all great and wonderful; however, the argument to be made is that there are plenty of other NFL broadcasters who are former players and don’t own teams. For example: Troy Aikman, Matt Ryan, JJ Watt, Rob Gronkowski, Ryan Fitzpatrick,  Tony Gonzalez, Andrew Whitworth, Richard Sherman, to name a few. The argument is, if the NFL is going to let Tom Brady participate in a production and broadcasting meeting surrounded by potential classified information, he should be forced to sell his 5%; otherwise be relieved of his role as a broadcaster.

Edited by

Angelica Ciulla

All Sports Talks