Greg Olsen on broadcasting, Tom Brady and plans to stay with Fox. 'Everyone thinks it's easy'
BALTIMORE - Greg Olsen has a passion for youth sports, and for coaching his three kids. For the past two years, his Youth Inc. podcast has been a helpful tool for navigating the ambiguous world of our kids' sports.
Olsen, though, is ready to get back into broadcasting this fall despite the presence of Tom Brady in the Fox broadcasting stable.
Fox plans to make Brady its top in-game analyst, a position previously occupied by Olsen. Olsen told USA TODAY Sports last week he plans to remain with Fox.
"As of now, yeah," he said.
Olsen also offered insight into what it takes to call a game.
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"Every guy has their own journey in sports broadcasting," Olsen said. "I think everyone thinks it's easy. I think everyone thinks getting up there and calling a live football game for three hours off the cuff and being able to get in, get out and deal with the flow of the game − the players, the schemes, the terminology ... There's a lot going on during a game and I think some guys really transition to it well and kind of take to it pretty quickly and other guys haven’t, and I think we've seen a mixed bag of results over the last couple of years."
Olsen said before he served as emcee for last week's Project Play Summit that Brady picked his brain. They talked about what goes into the job and the industry.
"I was happy to share some of that with him," Olsen said. "Obviously, his playing career and his resume and whatnot is an all timer. So you know, we'll see how the year goes. I don't think there's any real correlation between being a great player or an average player and how that correlates to being a great broadcaster or an average broadcaster. I think we've seen examples on both ends of that spectrum."
Olsen grinned.
"Everyone thinks it's easy until you do it," he said.
Contributing: Mackenzie Salmon
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