Tom Brady is steering his new NFL team to success early in the 2026 season.
According to Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal, Fox Sports is on pace to get its most social media views during an NFL season. The company has drawn 768 million views across all platforms, up 27% from last year.
Michael Bucklin, Fox Sports’ senior vice president of digital programming, attributed the climb in part to Brady. The legendary quarterback has created 77 million views, a 76% spike from this time last season.
“The Tom Brady digital series are on another level right now,” Bucklin said. “He’s just better at that than ever. His power rankings on Tuesdays are the best they’ve ever been. That series seems to be something that we used to do that we thought was good, and now it seems like we’re getting more coverage on those and more pickup on those than we’ve ever had before.”
Bucklin also highlighted the seven-time Super Bowl champion’s “Ask Tom” series, where Brady can expand on his in-game commentary.
“He’s just on fire,” Bucklin said. “Even the things he says in the booth, like the ‘piss missile,’ he’s able to elaborate on that stuff during the week. Or when he pulled out his playbook from the [the Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl LI]. … His ability to use these series during the week to build on these viral moments he’s having on Sunday has been successful for us.”
Former Patriots fueling Fox’s social media
It’s not only Brady leading Fox Sports to a strong digital presence. Former New England Patriots teammates Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman have driven 18.5 million views through four weeks of their new “The Gronk & Jules Show.”
Karp said some crossover is likely between the famous Pats trio, which could create even more buzz for Fox.
Bucklin also noted that Fox is producing a healthy mix of articles, audio, and video to satisfy everyone. Users are spending an average of five minutes and 48 seconds on its NFL content.
“The audience consumes content however they want,” Bucklin said. “There are people that want to listen to content, and they can listen to that content from our full-length shows on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. There are people who want to watch full-length episodes, from 45 minutes to an hour. There are people who just want to consume clips on short-form platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X, or YouTube Shorts. There are people who want to read about it. And we’re translating a lot of this video content into both newsletters and into written stories. So Tom Brady’s Power Rankings, we hope you watch the entire video. … We also have a version that goes to YouTube, email and a version you can open up and read on web.”
