For the first time in two decades, a new team in Fox’s Super Bowl booth

PHOENIX — On Sunday, more than 100 million people will tune into Fox to watch the Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. But Richie Zyontz isn’t sweating it.

Zyontz, Fox’s veteran television producer, is leading his seventh Super Bowl broadcast and his 14th overall. But for the first time in more than two decades, he won’t have Joe Buck or Troy Aikman calling the Super Bowl, since they are now the voices for ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Instead, Fox’s new No. 1 NFL crew — play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and analyst Greg Olsen — will make their Super Bowl debut. The duo should be familiar to Eagles fans after they called three Birds games this season, including Philly’s NFC championship game rout of the San Francisco 49ers, where they made a dog of a game watchable and entertaining.

In their first year as Fox’s top broadcast team, Burkhardt and Olsen have gotten positive reviews from both sports media pundits and Eagles fans, who can be especially hard on announcers (Philly fans once forced Buck to quit Twitter for a year) and were notoriously critical of NBC’s Cris Collinsworth during the Birds’ last Super Bowl appearance. Olsen’s development as a broadcaster has been particularly impressive, considering it’s just his second season as a full-time announcer.

“They both have a sense of the game, and I think both are really good at not fighting the crowd when the moment gets big and the noise builds to a crescendo,” Zyontz said of Burkhardt and Olsen. “Joe Buck was brilliant at that, and these guys are great at it, too. It’s kind of an art form.”

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The duo was also given something of a reprieve from Tom Brady, who announced Monday he wasn’t planning on joining Fox as its No. 1 NFL analyst until the 2024 season at the earliest. Brady also won’t be part of Fox’s lengthy Super Bowl pregame show, which begins at 11 a.m. Sunday and runs up until kickoff.

“I’m really happy for Kevin and Greg that they have this opportunity. It’s been a really good year,” said Rich Russo, a Penn State graduate who will work his fifth Super Bowl for Fox as lead director. “They’ve fit in with our crew tremendously. ... It’s been a seamless transition [from Buck and Aikman].”

It will be their first Super Bowl broadcast, but Burkhardt and Olsen will be surrounded by a veteran cast that includes longtime sideline reporter Erin Andrews, who will be working her fourth Super Bowl for Fox. She’ll be joined by veteran reporter Tom Rinaldi, the former ESPNer who will be covering his first Super Bowl after jumping over to Fox in 2021. Fox NFL rules analyst Mike Pereira will also be on hand to help out the broadcast with controversial penalties and close calls.

As far as Fox’s pregame coverage, expect the usual cast of characters leading up to the game. Curt Menefee will host the 7½-hour Fox NFL Sunday broadcast alongside Terry Bradshaw, with analysis from Howie Long, Michael Strahan, and Jimmy Johnson. The newest addition is Rob Gronkowski, the five-time Pro Bowl tight end who rejoined Fox as a studio analyst this season.

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The crew will be joined by a list of analysts too long to name, but some notable sports talkers will be former Eagles quarterback Michael Vick and Sean Payton, who was officially introduced as the new head coach of the Denver Broncos earlier this week.

As part of its production, Fox will roll out a new graphics package and a tweaked score bug, something that has become a tradition for networks during Super Bowl broadcasts. The network will also have updated animated graphics and could roll out some new features during the game, if the action on the field warrants it.

“There’s always something new,” Zyontz said. “How often those things actually get on TV depends on the game. We tend not to force stuff, and hope to use it wherever it works.”

As far as cameras go, Fox will deploy 44 manned cameras at the Super Bowl to cover all the action, double the 22 cameras they send to cover a normal NFL game. Overall, Fox will have 94 cameras, which includes a 4K camera and multiple high-speed cameras. It will have its famed “Megalodon” camera, which made a splash a few seasons ago with its cinematic look that many fans said reminded them of the popular Madden NFL video game.

“There has to be a comfort level going into the biggest game of the year,” Russo said. “I think when we add, we add effectively and use equipment that makes the most sense.”