SAN FRANCISCO – There was no chance that Matt Ryan was going to have a dual role between CBS and the Falcons, team president and CEO Greg Beadles told Front Office Sports.
Speaking Friday on Radio Row at Super Bowl LX, Beadles said Ryan’s recent appointment to Falcons president of football was always designed as a full-time role. That structure is very different from how Tom Brady splits his time between Fox Sports and the Raiders, where he’s a minority owner, or Troy Aikman’s divided duties between ESPN and the Dolphins, where he’s an advisor.
As talks intensified between the Falcons and Ryan, a former standout quarterback with the team, there was speculation that he, too, would be able to keep his broadcasting job. Not so, Beadles said.
“No, it was not on the table,” Beadles said about the potential of Ryan staying with CBS. “[Owner] Arthur [Blank] didn’t want a consultant, didn’t want an advisor. Like, this is a full-time job,” Beadles said. “And so we wanted to make sure Matt knew that. The only way he would do it is to be all-in, 100%. And that’s what he’s been doing since day one.”
That move, however, involved somewhat upsetting a league rights holder in CBS, where Ryan had been seen as a rising star.
“The folks at CBS, when we walk by over there, they’re giving us a little bit of a slant eye for taking him away,” Beadles said. “But he knew he had to be all in.”
International Profile
The Falcons, meanwhile, will be the home team for one of the NFL’s unprecedented nine international games in the 2026 season. The Rams are already set to host the Melbourne game against their arch rival, the 49ers, while the Cowboys will play in Rio de Janeiro.
Atlanta has lobbied to host the upcoming game in Munich, as the team has rights to Germany in the NFL Global Markets Program. Complicating that notion, however, is that the Falcons were just in Berlin last fall as the designated road team against the Colts.
“We will be at home internationally. We don’t know where yet. We’re giving up a home game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and have announced that to our season-ticket holders,” Beadles said. “We would like the Munich game. We’ve made that clear to the league, but there are other [interested] teams, too. Now that the league has announced the nine [international] games and has that locked down, we should know in a matter of weeks.”
Super Bowl Planning
Officials from Los Angeles are actively scouting this week in preparation for next year’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. ESPN, broadcaster for the game, has an elaborate handoff planned that will begin just at Super Bowl LX ends Sunday. But Atlanta, the Super Bowl LXII host in 2028, is already beginning their efforts, too, for the forthcoming game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
That event will further cement Atlanta as a major sports hub between last summer’s MLB All-Star Game, matches in the upcoming FIFA World Cup, and the 2031 Final Four in men’s college basketball.
“This is a multiyear process,” Beadles said. “We’ve been through it before, and had it in the second year of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. We hosted a very successful Super Bowl, but we want to be better. So we’re trying to learn and be ready.”
