About

Lead NFL Reporter, Feature Contributor Veteran journalist Tom Rinaldi joined FOX Sports in 2021, contributing across the network’s world-class portfolio of live events. Rinaldi serves as the lead reporter from FOX NFL’s top game each week alongside play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt, analyst Tom Brady, reporter Erin Andrews and rules analyst Mike Pereira. Throughout his career, Rinaldi has covered many of the biggest events in sports, from the sidelines of the Super Bowl, World Cup and College Football Playoff National Championship to the Daytona 500, Masters, Wimbledon, the Olympics, NBA and more. Rinaldi joined FOX Sports from ESPN, where since 2002, he was one of the network’s most prominent correspondents and storytellers, crossing a broad spectrum of sports as a reporter and storyteller across platforms and programs. With ESPN, Rinaldi’s event assignments included working the sidelines at the College Football Playoff National Semifinal and Championship games and the Rose Bowl. In golf, he has covered all four majors and was the network’s primary interviewer at the Masters. In tennis, he announced play-by-play for matches at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, as well as handling on-court interviews and the trophy ceremony at the Open. He also worked the sidelines during NBA regular and postseason games. Rinaldi has also covered the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Final Four, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup and the Olympics. In addition to his duties on live events, Rinaldi has become known for his original storytelling, which ran on a variety of shows. Among his stories, “Carry On,” chronicling the relationship between two high school wrestlers from Cleveland and the television producer who made a pivotal difference in their lives, won the national Edward R. Murrow Award for best news documentary. Overall, Rinaldi has won 17 national Sports Emmy Awards and seven national Edward R. Murrow Awards. He has been nominated in five separate Emmy Awards categories, including writing, reporting and feature storytelling, more than 40 times in total. Rinaldi authored the New York Times bestseller “The Red Bandanna: A Life, A Choice, A Legacy,” which chronicles the heroic acts and tragic death of former Boston College lacrosse player, volunteer fighter and equities trader Welles Crowther, who lost his life while saving others in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One of the leading interviews in the industry, Rinaldi has sat down with some of the biggest names in sports, including Serena Williams, Derek Jeter, Roger Federer, Kevin Durant, Magic Johnson, Jack Nicklaus, Nick Saban, Mike Krzyzewski, Rafael Nadal and Mariano Rivera. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Rinaldi graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.