How Much Longer Can Fox Sports Keep the Top-Rated Pregame Crew Together?

NEW ORLEANS — There aren’t many constants in the sports media business, but one of them has been the dominance of Fox Sports’ NFL pregame show. 

For 31 consecutive years, Fox NFL Sunday has led all networks in pregame studio show viewership. The show features a trio of stalwarts—Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, and Howie Long—who have been on the program since its inception in 1994 (Johnson had a hiatus for six years in between), while host Curt Menefee has been there since 2007. Rob Gronkowski and Michael Strahan fill out the show. 

One of the questions popping around the media members at the Fox Sports press conference leading up to Super Bowl LIX was how much longer Fox will be able to keep the crew together. 

“I told my wife before I left the hotel room, I was sitting there, I said, ‘I’ve got two years left at Fox. I’m 76,’” Bradshaw said. “It’s a young man’s game. I get that. Everybody wants their new [people]. I said, if we can get to the next Super Bowl, I’ll be 80. I think that’s time. That’s pushing it.” 

Long, one of the youngest-looking 65-year-olds on the planet, was asked how much longer he could envision continuity with the same crew. 

“I think one of us is going to die on the set,” Long deadpanned, declining to specify who before acknowledging the marvel of the run lasting several decades.

“We enjoy it every year. We talk about it all the time, actually, how much we enjoy being here. I think they pay us to fly and stay in hotels — the rest of it we’d do for free,” he said. 

Asked how much longer he thought he could go with Fox Sports, Johnson, 81, said, “Oh, I really have no idea. Really, for the last five or six years at least, I’ve been going day by day rather than year by year.”