You'll Never Believe Why The Tom Brady Ceremony Wasn't On Television, Even Locally, Last Night. Plus, My Final Thoughts On A Perfectly Done Evening To Honor The Greatest Ever

Sporting News - For over two decades, Tom Brady has been the face of New England sports. On Wednesday night, he will become the face of the New England Patriots Hall of Fame.

The seven-time Super Bowl champion, five-time Super Bowl MVP and three-time league MVP will now get to call himself a Patriots Hall of Famer. He will be inducted by Robert Kraft and the Pats franchise on Wednesday night, with red-carpet entrances starting at 5 p.m. and the ceremony beginning at 7 p.m.

Kraft, longtime New England coach Bill Belichick, and dozens of former Pats players and assorted celebrities will be in attendance. Famed Boston comedian Bill Burr will emcee the event and deliver the opening monologue. It will surely be a night to remember for Brady, his friends, family and fans.

I flew home to Massachusetts this week for a checkup on my jaw and orbital bone, to visit my family who I haven't seen in a while, and to attend the Patriots Hall of Fame ceremony for the greatest to ever do it. 

When I mentioned to many in my family, and friends that I was going to this event a lot of them were confused. They hadn't heard much about it, didn't realize it was happening because it wasn't publicized that much, and couldn't find it on any damn TV guide or streaming search. Nobody knew how to watch it and that the only way to do so was to stream it via the Patriots website online. 

It's not like the entirety of New England was in the dark, tickets for the event were sold out and going for steep prices on the secondary market.

When Fasoli and I arrived to set up and get a spot on the red carpet, there was a pretty long line at the box office of people trying to get tickets last minute, to no avail. 

This was an event. Gillette was buzzing at 3:30pm when we arrived. News vans everywhere. Season ticket holders in the EMC Vip lots tailgating in shorts and sandals with Buffett blasting. Electricity in the air. 

Which makes it even more sad that the people of not just New England, but the entire country, weren't able to watch last night's spectacle. 

But I found out why and the reason was so perfectly fitting, I should have guessed it myself:

THE MUSIC LABELS.

No bullshit, no joke.

I have a very good friend of mine who is a VP of a Boston TV Network that I hung out with before heading to Gillette for the event. We were at Gronk's house nearby in Foxboro playing 3-in-the-bucket with a group (I got ran off the court), and I was telling him how I couldn't believe an event of this magnitude wasn't being televised by his, or any other station. He told me that not only did they try, but that Peacock had a deal in place to stream it live and on-demand nationwide to subscribers, but that "a deal couldn't be reached between the powers that be and the music labels/royalty associations". So that fucked everything up. 

Greed. 

Money. 

Red tape and an archaic business model.

And fighting over pennies to split amongst not the artists themselves, but the master recording rights-holders (typically held by the record labels) and publishing rights-holders (shared by the artist, producers, and songwriters)., etc. etc. etc.

What a fucking joke.

There were 2 artists in attendance last night, who I'm sure both would have appeared free of charge to honor Brady and as a favor to Robert Kraft. Michael Rubin's lapdog Jay Z, and the guy who's sold Gillette out so many times it should be named after him if they don't name it Brady & Belichick Stadium instead- Kenny Chesney. 

Jay Z came out before people were even in their seats and played Tom Brady's personal favorite song, "Public Service Announcement (PSA Interlude)".

The record is off of his 2003 album The Black Album. And the rights to the song are primarily held by the following entities:

1. Roc-A-Fella Records: Jay Z's own record label, which released The Black Album.
2. Def Jam Recordings: The parent company of Roc-A-Fella Records, which also has rights to the distribution of the song.
3. Jay Z (Shawn Carter): As the artist and one of the songwriters, Jay Z holds rights to the song as well.
4. Producers and Songwriters: Just Blaze, who produced the track, and any other contributing songwriters hold rights as part of their publishing agreements.

They didn’t even end up playing this part on the website stream which leads me to believe even the Patriots couldn’t get the simplest of clearances for this. Unless you were there in the building, or saw it on social media via somebody who was afterwards, you wouldn’t even know this occurred.

Kenny Chesney came out and did a very touching tribute to Brady and his teammates with his hit "Boys of Fall".

"The Boys of Fall" is a track from Chesney's 2010 album Hemingway's Whiskey. The rights to the song are primarily held by-

1. Blue Chair Records: Kenny Chesney's own record label, which released Hemingway's Whiskey.
2. Columbia Nashville: The parent company that distributes Kenny Chesney's music.
3. Kenny Chesney: As the performing artist, Kenny Chesney holds the rights to the song.
4. Songwriters: Casey Beathard and Dave Turnbull wrote the song, and they hold publishing rights as the songwriters.

Now there were other songs and beds, like that weird Neil DeGrasse Tyson narrated thing somebody had the odd idea to run that had a backing track to it. And at the end when Bono did the incredibly long-winded and rambling introduction to U2's "Beautiful Day" to wind the show down. 

1. Island Records: The record label that released All That You Can't Leave Behind.
2. Universal Music Group: The parent company of Island Records.
3. U2: The band members (Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.) are credited as the songwriters and hold rights to the song.
4. Universal Music Publishing Group: Handles the publishing rights for U2's music.

I might be forgetting others, but that's 3 major songs and a bunch of minimally licensed or non-licensed royalty-free backing track bullshit. Now could the Kraft's have probably figured out a way to make this event a little bit less profitable in exchange for the extra ASCAP and BMI fees so that this could have aired on Boston television at least? Yah probably. But the thing about these fucking blood-sucking leeches that collect royalties for music licensing is they never stop. You want to air it on local tv? You gotta pay X. You want to stream it on a national streaming network? You gotta pay Y. Ask anybody who owns anything- a store, a restaurant, a bar, anything that plays music (which basically means pretty much anything) and they'll tell you what a nightmare it is dealing with these groups. They lurk in the shadows, and pounce on your with threats of lawsuits, demands for ridiculous fees, and offers to sign onto boilerplate contracts to enter into "compliance". And there are like half a dozen of them now. There used to just be BMI and ASCAP. But the racket has grown so out of control and the music industry's profits have shrunk so much since the introduction of the internet and streaming that charging anybody and everybody any chance they get to play music, even indirectly (no joke, if you have TV's in your waiting room, you technically have to pay these fees because TV's play commercials which use music in them). I know I digress here but I fucking hate these people. If you listen to our podcast at all, you know this is no secret. And another one of these companies just popped up. (I have a blog coming on this next week so I'll move on). 

Could somebody have stepped up and sponsored the event? Yah of course. There was probably a line of companies looking to splash their name on the night. But that would have tarnished it calling it something like "The Nestle Tom Brady Patriots Hall Of Fame Ceremony". Instead they went with The Tom Brady Patriots Hall of Fame Ceremony presented by Raytheon (which Robert Kraft awkwardly went out of his way to shout out and mention in the middle of his tribute speech at the end of the night which he absolutely crushed. More on this later)

THANKFULLY, the ceremony will be airing NEXT Friday night, JUNE 21st, on WBZ Boston, CBS at 7pm Eastern. It will be a condensed-down version (my guess is they will cut all the music performances and some of the ramblings in the speeches throughout the night). So for everybody who missed it on Patriots.com last night, you can catch it next Friday. Let your parents know. Because it's worth the watch.

As Jerry eloquently wrote this morning, last night was magical. 

Here are my thoughts on everything from the night- 

- I'm not sure how things could have began any better. We're still waiting on Fasoli to finish editing four of the 16 riveting video series he's responsible for editing so that he can knock this out at 4 am for us. But we got to talk to freaking everybody on the red carpet. Patriot royalty from every era turned out. The Patriots did an incredible job bringing them all together, and orchestrating such a great red carpet entrance. Jerry even got this greeting from the man himself so that he can finally die a happy man.

The other networks that were there hated the fact we were. Between Jerry, and Fasoli, and I, we knew who every single former player was and was able to corral them over to us without having to read the whiteboards and guess like most of them did. Except for the king Steve Burton. He was at the head of the line and everybody ran over to him to talk. 

We got Troy Brown to talk about how he went from a special teamer to a 1,000 yd receiver when Brady arrived in town and breathed a whole new breathe of life into his career.

We got blown off extremely, extremely hard by Julian Edelman.

We got one of the only interviews Gronk and his girlfriend Camille gave.

We got Stephon Gilmore to spill that he's considering coming back to sign and end his career a Patriot

We even got big-timed by Dave, Gaz, and John. Hank was cool because he's a nice person. 

The star power assembled was crazy. I know it's Tom Brady, but we mentioned several times that you don't ever see that kind of turnout unless somebody is getting married or buried. 

It was an awesome experience, and we can't thank the Patriots enough. Especially Gabby and Alexandra, who couldn't have been nicer and more hospitable.  

- Christian Fauria might be a better-looking dude than Brady. No joke. Call me gay all you want. Don't care. Guy is striking. 

- Brady's oldest son, the one Dave made famous, is a fucking giant. No joke the kid might be taller than Tom. Makes Barron Trump look like Mugsy Bogues. 

- The fact Jay Z came to this, as a favor to his boys Kraft and Rubin or not, was a very big fucking deal. Jay Z hasn't performed live in forever. Nevermind in front of a crowd full of white-quarterback worshipping New England Patriots fans.

- The heavens shined upon the event. It couldn't have been nicer weather outside. The stadium was slam-packed like it was a playoff game. They had the back endzone closed off (the Optum Club Zone side) like they do for concerts, because of the stage, but the entire field was packed. 

- Bill Burr played MC, doing an opening bit and then a second one later and he couldn't have been funnier. He did a bit at the beginning about what it was like being a Patriots fan before Brady and Belichick arrived. He tore into Parcells and Pete Carroll and was fucking hilarious. He also lit Andy Reid and the Chiefs up. And he destroyed ARod. It was great. I really hope CBS keeps his bits in for everybody to see.

- They played series of videos from Brady's opponents throughout the night. The loudest boo's they crowd gave out were by far for Eli Manning, and Patrick Mahomes.

- Peyton Manning came out as the first surprise guest and freaking killed it. He made some really great jokes about Patriots fans always being so welcoming to him and "always seeming to know his mother's name and bringing her up whenever he was in town". He also told a really great story about the time Brady and him trained together in Tennessee in 2009. They had highschool kids run routes for them and they took all their phones away. “We said, ‘If you tell anybody that Tom Brady and I are working out together and that we’re friends, then we’re going to kill all of you.’”

- The two biggest and best standing ovations of the night came for, first, Randy Moss, who broke into tears after saying how he couldn't believe how at home he felt upon arriving in New England

(Sidebar- one thing I would kill for the opportunity to ask Randy Moss about was what the fuck happened at the beginning of that third year of his in New England. Why did he go off the rails and start talking crazy after that Miami game in the presser? Why did his piece of shit agent start leaking shit to the media about him being so unhappy in New England? For what started out as a beautiful and budding relationship, and could have blossomed into something even more incredible, it turned really sour really quick, (not Antonio Brown quick), but it still makes no sense in the entire scheme of things.)

- and the other, for Bill Belichick, who was a surprise guest.

Belichick was fucking amazing. 

- Belichick went out of his way during his speech, just like he did in Brady's Netflix roast, to say what a joke it is that Rodney Harrison isn't in the Hall of Fame. Here's the way I see it, Belichick is the greatest football mind, past or present, that the world will ever know. If you think otherwise you're a dumb dumb. If he is overly-complimentary of a player, which he is sparingly, then chances are they're pretty damn good. If he says somebody should be in the HOF, they probably should. Done and done.

- Vince Wilfork has slimmed down and is in such good shape that even Jerry barely recognized him. Seeing guys like him, Matt Light, and Joe Thomas looking like normal people after they finish playing never ceases to amaze me. These guys are serious athletes whose big part of the job is maintaining a weight like that to play at. 

- Gronk told a great story about him and Brady having this telepathic connection, but that it began from Brady inspiring him and pumping him up mentally into thinking he was bigger, faster, and better than everybody else. I was really hoping that he was finally going to tell the world about his savant playbook memorization story, but guess he's just going to have to save that for when I launch my show and have him on.

- Matt Cassell was also really great. He told some stories about what a psycho Brady at all times, in the weight room and on the playing field. One of the best was about a play where Brady got hit so hard he almost died, and came limping to the sidelines trying to scream out, but had no breathe, saying he only needed 1 play off.  And sure enough he was right back ou there the next play because as Brady always told his teammates, “You never wanna see somebody else doing your job”

- Then there was this. Which everybody's heard about by now.

If you haven't for some reason. Read about it here.

- Whatever Robert Kraft was on last night is the same stuff they pump Joe Biden full off before they wheel him out to deliver the State of The Union every year. He was incredible. Extremely well spoken, full of emotion, and sharper than he's appeared in years. He delivered a remarkable tribute to Brady.

Kraft's speech was so heartfelt, that it had Brady in tears several times.

- Speaking of Kraft, Matthew Slater introduced him and man oh man was he impressive. I had no idea how good he was at public speaking because he was never really in front of a mic, but Jerod Mayo adding him to his coaching staff as his "right hand man" has me even more pumped for the Mayo era.

- Speaking of Jerod Mayo, Belichick shouted out pretty much every defensive superstar over the past 20 years but left Mayo out either by mistake or on purpose but it was noticeable.

- Brady closed out the night and the fact that Dave missed this speech, not just because he got mentioned, to watch an NBA Finals Game 3 is fucking insanity. Brady delivered on stage last night, like he did for 20 years here. I seriously don't know what can possibly rattle this guy.

The line of the night: “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined and willing to work for it.” 

Brady said the difference between great quarterbacks and average quarterbacks is what’s between your ears: being a leader, knowing the game inside and out, and throwing. Everybody at the NFL level can throw the ball. It's the work they do off the field, in the weight room, film room, and off-season that separates the great ones from the rest.

It's going to suck not getting to watch Brady throw the football every Sunday anymore. But it's going to be awesome tuning in every week to whatever game he's announcing and hearing him put on a masterclass. This guy is going to be so damn good at broadcasting it's not even funny. People who were marveled by Tony Romo a few seasons ago will feel like fools for thinking he was good when they hear Brady. 

It's crazy how good we had it for 20 years. Never ever feeling like you were done or out of a game, including being down 28-3 in a Super Bowl because you had a superhuman cheat code at quarterback. For 20 freaking years! 

Like Brady said to the crowd last night, a lot of people love the Patriots. Even more people hated the Patriots. But EVERYBODY respected the Patriots. 

Think about that and think about how few of professional anything you can say that about. 

And not only did we have this guy who always seemed to deliver in the clutch, when lesser teams would long be down and out, because he was the best to ever play the game. But he was also an exemplary person off the field. To our knowledge the worst things Thomas Patrick Edward Brady Jr. has ever done was date Tara Reid, smash his phone in a million pieces rather turn it over to keystone cop fake authorities who were hell bent on framing him, and get cheated on by his wife with their kids’ karate instructor. An elite champion on the field who’s even better off the field? That never happens in sports. But it happened for us.

I really hope last night conveyed just a fraction of the gratitude we have for all the unforgettable memories and happiness this guy gave us over the years. Thank you Tom.