Fox Sports's Richie Zyontz and Rich Russo, the lead producer and director for the Kevin Burkhardt-Tom Brady broadcast team
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 545 of the Sports Media Podcast features Fox Sports NFL producer Richie Zyontz and Fox Sports NFL director Rich Russo. They are the lead production staffers on Fox’s top NFL team. Last February Zyontz produced his eighth Super Bowl as a lead producer while Russo’s directed his sixth as a lead director. In this podcast, the two discuss Fox’s Chiefs-Eagles broadcast, the 11th rematch of a Super Bowl matchup in the following season and just the fourth to occur within the first two weeks of that season; the significance of having a big game this early in the season; why Arrowhead is a great place to broadcast a game; Tom Brady’s second year in the booth; where Brady has improved and what he needs to improve on; working with someone as famous as Brady; the rules imposed on Brady as a broadcaster; the upcoming "Madden & Summerall--How They Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting” book and Zyontz’s role in it; why Fox has two sideline reporters for its top team in Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi; watching the Bills-Ravens incredible finish and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the sports media podcast. I'm your host, Richard Dutch. My producer is Sean Cherry. Two guests on this episode. They've been here before. And if you are in sports television production, they are two of the most accomplished people in the space. |
| 0:23.4 | Richie Zions is the lead NFL producer for Fox Sports. |
| 0:29.2 | Last February, he produced his eighth Super Bowl as lead producer. |
| 0:34.1 | His position, of course, means that he is the producer for Kevin Burkart, Tom Brady, Aaron Andrews, and Tom Rinaldi. |
| 0:41.3 | His partner in crime is Rich Rousseau, the lead director for Fox when it comes to its NFL game presentation. |
| 0:50.6 | Last year, Rich Rousseau directed his sixth Super Bowl as the lead director. |
| 0:56.6 | They're here to talk about what is a massive game for Fox on Sunday, and that's the Eagles |
| 1:02.1 | at Chiefs. Only the 11th time, we've had a rematch of a Super Bowl in the following season. |
| 1:11.3 | It's at 425 on Fox. |
| 1:13.1 | It's obviously Fox's first major, major game. |
| 1:16.1 | We'll get into that. |
| 1:17.2 | They essentially own the space. |
| 1:18.8 | There's no other Fox game on Sunday, |
| 1:21.1 | and CBS has two games in the late window, |
| 1:24.9 | but not any kind of massive media markets. And with that, |
| 1:30.1 | I bring in Richie Zions and Rich Rousseau. Welcome back to the sports media podcast. |
| 1:34.1 | Yeah, thanks for, thanks for having us back. Nice to be back. |
| 1:37.7 | All right. I mean, I will not go in to the audience to the 30 minutes that we spent before |
| 1:42.8 | this podcast started trying to figure out |
| 1:44.8 | the tech to make it work. |
| 1:46.9 | I think Rich Russo, I believe, is somewhere like, where are you, Rich? |
| 1:51.0 | Deep in the Czech Republic where we could not have gotten any kind of... |
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