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Erin Andrews on New Fox Deal, Finding Out Troy Aikman Was Out and Recruiting Tom Brady

Also in Traina Thoughts: Freddie Freeman story gets more surreal, Draymond apologizes to Kendrick Perkins, a very sensitive MLB player and much more.

Jimmy Traina

1. The wild offseason of NFL broadcasting changes affected a lot of people, including Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews. The sideline reporter for Fox’s top NFL team went from working with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to now working with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen. She will work with Burkhardt and Tom Brady sometime in the future.

Andrews, whose own contract was set to expire this August, talked about all of the shake-ups (and why she doesn’t love the term “sideline reporter”) on the latest episode of the SI Media Podcast.

Andrews on re-signing with Fox for three more years

“I signed a contract. I quietly did that. I figured enough was enough with the headlines for a while. My deal was up in August. Fox came to me pretty much right away and just said, ‘We wanna keep you here.’ At that point I was unaware of who I was gonna be doing the games with. They were great about it. That’s one thing I do have to say regardless of what other opinions are out there. My bosses at Fox, Eric Shanks and Brad Zager, were very upfront with me. Even upfront with me when I would call and be like, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening? What’s the plan? I just want to know what the plan is.’ And they would just say, ‘Hang on, hang on. I promise you’re going to be happy, just hang on.’”

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On finding out Troy Aikman was leaving Fox for ESPN

“I was standing right here in Montana. It was winter break. We were just done with the Super Bowl, done with everything. … I’m standing here, and my phone rang. And I just looked at [my husband] Jarret [Stoll] and I said, ‘This isn’t good.’ I’d said Troy’s going to Amazon, and he’s calling to tell me, so I put it on speaker. We just started b.s.’ing, and I told him I was on my way to go work out and we were in Montana, we were going to go skiing later, blah, blah, blah. And he just got right into it and he’s like, “Hey, I’m going to ESPN.’ I just looked at Jarret and I didn’t speak for five minutes. I tried to talk, but I started to cry. I just couldn’t believe that was happening. I think all of us on our crew thought it was Amazon. I was just like, ‘Wait a second. What?’ My next reaction was, Who are you doing the games with? I was just trying to put it all together.”

On reaching out to Tom Brady the night she found out Troy Aikman was leaving Fox

“I’m not gonna lie, I went out that night in Montana, and my husband and I went to our favorite bar and I consumed a lot of tequila. I then apologized to my husband because this was supposed to be the vacation we didn’t talk on our phones, but everybody’s just calling each other from our crew, we’re calling our bosses at Fox, we’re just like, What the heck? At this point Tom was retired, I may or may not have put a text out there or a DM or whatever and just said, ‘Hey, what are you doing next year? You wanna be part of our crew? I just told him how fun it was and how great our crew was. I placed a call to one of my bosses at Fox and said, ‘Full disclosure, I’ve had a lot of tequila. Why not try to hit it out of the park here with Tom?”

Amazingly, Fox did hit it out of the park with Brady, but AFTER he ended up coming out of retirement in a reported 10-year, $375 million deal to join Fox’s top NFL team and become a Fox ambassador.

Other topics covered with Andrews on the SI Media Podcast include whether she thinks Aaron Rodgers will go into broadcasting when he retires, why she’ll always be a Derek Jeter fan, what she wants her role to be at Fox, being herself on her podcast, Calm Down With Erin and Charissa, how Larry David used an incident at her wedding in a story line on Curb Your Enthusiasm and much more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

2. During the latest SI Media Podcast, I discussed the Freddie Freeman situation with Sal Licata during our “Traina Thoughts” segment.

Freeman’s Dodgers teammate Clayton Kershaw recently questioned whether the Dodgers were playing second fiddle to the Braves, which I covered in Monday’s Traina Thoughts.

Freeman then fired his agent, Casey Close, after playing in a series in Atlanta over the weekend. 

Now comes a stunning accusation by Fox Sports’ Doug Gottlieb followed by the threat of a lawsuit from Close.

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If this was an NFL or NBA story instead of an MLB story, it would be talked about on every sports show all day.

3. Padres pitcher Mike Clevinger pitched six innings of shutout baseball in earning a win against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday. He spent his postgame interview complaining about Arizona analyst Bob Brenly, who apparently complained about how slow Clevinger is on the mound. 

Brenly said absolutely nothing wrong here. It’s hard to believe Clevinger would a) pay so much attention to what the opposing team’s analyst would say while he’s pitching and b) be so sensitive.

4. The Guardians had a walk-off win against the Twins last night, and their celebration was downright violent.

5. In Tuesday’s Traina Thoughts, we told you about the nasty war of words between Draymond Green and Kendrick Perkins, which escalated when Green called Perkins a slur. Green has now apologized for the words he used in his attack on Perkins.

6. Cavs forward Kevin Love married SI Swimsuit model Kate Bock over the weekend. You may have seen that LeBron and Adele were in attendance.

But what caught my eye is that the couple had Love’s former teammates Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye “host” the wedding. I need details on what this entailed.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 56th birthday to Mike Tyson.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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