Before watching football all day on Sundays, you likely tune into one of the several morning pregame shows that air on various networks. If you've watched Fox NFL Sunday recently, you might have noticed an odd new hologram in recent weeks.
Hosted by Curt Menafee every week, the Fox NFL Sunday crew includes analysts Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, Rob Gronkowski, and Jay Glazer. There is one other recurring guest who isn't physically in the studio — Tom Brady. Brady is typically at a game on Sunday mornings as part of Fox's No. 1 broadcast crew this season.
No, Fox doesn't connect to Brady using a satellite feed or having him call in on Zoom. Brady appears on the show via hologram. It's unique, weird, and impressive technology all at once. Here's more info on the Brady hologram that Fox has been rolling out in recent weeks.
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Tom Brady hologram on Fox pregame show, explained
Since Brady isn't able to be on-site with the crew in California each week, Fox has him appear via hologram instead. Here's some more info as to how Fox is able to do that, per Sports Illustrated:
In order to do this they had Brady stand in front of a camera before taking a full body shot of the retired quarterback. They superimposed him onto the green screen that the actual studio crew was standing in front of, then everyone kind of pretended he was actually in the room.
As for the finished product, here's what it looks like. The hologram first made an appearance in late October:
🪄📺 @TomBrady is getting ready to call the #Chiefs vs #49ers game in Santa Clara, but through the magic of television he's in studio with our crew in LA! pic.twitter.com/AcBCGoTJza
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 20, 2024
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Strahan even joked about Brady appearing bigger next to him:
“The technology is really cool nowadays, what you can do, except for the scale was a little off, Tom Brady is not bigger than me, I will tell you that right now, America,” Strahan said.
Fox used the technology about a month later before Brady was set to broadcast the Week 11 Packers-Bears game:
Fox is doing the hologram Tom Brady thing again... pic.twitter.com/3FSZuFL3uJ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 17, 2024
As far as fans' reactions are concerned, several of them have a mix of shock, confusion, and an overall "why do we need this" sentiment. Fox bringing the technology back means someone there likes what they are doing. We'll see how many times the network continues to do this throughout the season.
