Fox Sports Has A New Team In The Super Bowl Broadcast Booth

On Sunday, more than 100 million people will tune into Fox to watch the Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. But Richie Zyontz isn’t sweating it, reports The Philly Inquirer.

Zyontz, Fox’s veteran television producer, is leading his seventh Super Bowl broadcast and his 14th overall. But for the first time in more than two decades, he won’t have Joe Buck or Troy Aikman calling the Super Bowl, since they are now the voices for ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Instead, Fox’s new No. 1 NFL crew — play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and analyst Greg Olsen — will make their Super Bowl debut. The duo should be familiar to Eagles fans after they called three Birds games this season, including Philly’s NFC championship game rout of the San Francisco 49ers, where they made a dog of a game watchable and entertaining.

In their first year as Fox’s top broadcast team, Burkhardt and Olsen have gotten positive reviews from both sports media pundits and Eagles fans, who can be especially hard on announcers. Olsen’s development as a broadcaster has been particularly impressive, considering it’s just his second season as a full-time announcer.

“They both have a sense of the game, and I think both are really good at not fighting the crowd when the moment gets big and the noise builds to a crescendo,” Zyontz said of Burkhardt and Olsen. “Joe Buck was brilliant at that, and these guys are great at it, too. It’s kind of an art form.”

The duo was also given something of a reprieve from Tom Brady, who announced Monday he wasn’t planning on joining Fox as its No. 1 NFL analyst until the 2024 season at the earliest. Brady also won’t be part of Fox’s lengthy Super Bowl pregame show, which begins at 11 a.m. Sunday and runs up until kickoff.

It will be their first Super Bowl broadcast, but Burkhardt and Olsen will be surrounded by a veteran cast that includes longtime sideline reporter Erin Andrews, who will be working her fourth Super Bowl for Fox. She’ll be joined by veteran reporter Tom Rinaldi, the former ESPNer who will be covering his first Super Bowl after jumping over to Fox in 2021. Fox NFL rules analyst Mike Pereira will also be on hand to help out the broadcast with controversial penalties and close calls.

As far as Fox’s pregame coverage, expect the usual cast of characters leading up to the game. Curt Menefee will host the 7½-hour Fox NFL Sunday broadcast alongside Terry Bradshaw, with analysis from Howie Long, Michael Strahan, and Jimmy Johnson. The newest addition is Rob Gronkowski, the five-time Pro Bowl tight end who rejoined Fox as a studio analyst this season.