Tom Brady will be in the spotlight as one of Sunday’s central figures

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 125 million viewers will tune in Sunday on Fox, DirecTV, and streaming services Tubi and Hulu to watch the Eagles and Chiefs square off in Super Bowl LIX, a rematch of Kansas City’s 38-35 victory two years ago.

The reasons for tuning in, beyond the Super Bowl being this country’s ultimate positive shared cultural/entertainment experience, are myriad.

The main story line, of course, is the Chiefs’ quest to become the first franchise to win three straight Super Bowls.

Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, the rookie color analyst alongside play-by-play voice Kevin Burkhardt on the broadcast, said during a call with sports media reporters this past week that he would be thrilled for quarterback Patrick Mahomes if the Chiefs win a third straight title.

Brady said he expressed those thoughts personally to Mahomes when they recorded a one-on-one interview Thursday morning, which will air during the 5½-hour pregame show that begins at 1 p.m.

“I said, ‘Look, there’s nobody who would be [happier] for you than me if you go out and you do something that no other team in history has ever done and no other quarterback’s ever done, because I love seeing other people achieve great things,’ ” said Brady.

“Anything that Patrick is doing, I don’t believe will ever detract from what I accomplished in my career.”

Though he’s now two years removed from playing in an NFL game and four from appearing in (and winning, over Mahomes and the Chiefs) a Super Bowl, Brady is one of the central figures in Sunday’s festivities.

The first year of Brady’s 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox to serve as its No. 1 game analyst has been … let’s stick with calling it uneven. Various highs and lows of Brady’s broadcasts have been dissected and analyzed in this space as the season has played out, and at this point we have a pretty good sense of what we’re getting Sunday. He’ll refer to Burkhardt — who deserves enormous credit for commanding his own role while breaking in the inexperienced and often cautious Brady — as KB at least a dozen times. He’ll have excellent moments he casually breaks down something like why a receiver’s route wasn’t sharp enough, and he’ll have moments in which he’s basically rehashing play-by-play when a replay is showing. And more than once, he’ll stare into the camera with a frozen smile during a peek into the broadcast booth as if he’s an alien trying to persuade you he comes in peace.

Brady has plenty of experience thriving under the almost unfathomable pressure of a Super Bowl, but this is a different beast, and everyone with a remote control is a critic. Perhaps he will save his best broadcast for the season’s last. And then we can fire up further speculation regarding whether this is his last broadcast, period, given his role in Raiders ownership, a blatant conflict of interest that he continues to downplay despite reports that he’s far more involved than he lets on.

Other subjects of interest come Sunday at 6:30 p.m. and beyond? There’s the Taylor Swift effect, certainly, and her welcome ability to draw younger and female demographics to the sport. There’s the curiosity regarding whether Swift’s boyfriend, Chiefs tight end and podcasting star Travis Kelce, might call it a career should his team win a third straight.

Oh, and then there’s this: Everyone will be watching to see if the Chiefs get the important calls from the officials when they need them. Such a notion is rooted in both conspiracy theory and familiarity — the Chiefs are here all the time, so of course they will get some breaks along the way, just as the Patriots did in their reign. But those breaks — such as a brutal roughing-the-passer call against the Texans in the divisional round, or a terrible spot for the Bills in the AFC title game — have been prevalent lately.

Mike Pereira, Fox’s rules analyst who will be in the booth with Brady and Burkhardt, outright dismissed the suggestion that the Chiefs have been the deliberate beneficiary of favorable calls.

“Look, I’ve been very careful about what I’ve said over the last few weeks because I understand how people can feel this way when you get these marginal calls that go one way, like they have gone periodically now with the Chiefs,’’ said Pereira.

“But I think I’ll throw my harshest word out there now because I can quote Roger Goodell, it’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s the fact that people that are talking about this really don’t understand officiating, and how difficult it is, and how decisions have to be made in one-26th of a second. That’s the length of time you get to see something.

“As an official, you don’t think about teams, you don’t think about players, you think about trying to be right so you get the opportunity to work a Super Bowl, so you get the opportunity to work another year in the league.”

Pereira’s point is a fair and logical one. But quoting Goodell isn’t the flex of integrity that he might think it is. The officials are going to be under the microscope Sunday. And should those marginal calls more than periodically go the Chiefs way, they may end up drawing more attention than even the players themselves, and Brady up there in the booth.

Super coverage starts early

Fox’s pregame show begins at 1 p.m., but its coverage actually starts with the traditional hourlong road to the Super Bowl program, produced by NFL Films, at 11 a.m. Following that is another hourlong special that will have some interest to Patriots fans. Titled “The Madden Cruiser: A Bayou Adventure with Bill Belichick,’’ the former Patriots and current University of North Carolina coach hops aboard John Madden’s legendary bus to make the trip to New Orleans. Guests along the way include Brady and Ty Law … “Sports Sunday” on NBC Sports Boston and NBC 10, which has been on hiatus since late January, has not been canceled and will be “continually evaluated through 2025,’’ per a company spokesperson … Checked in with Rich Shertenlieb, who made his presence known at Super Bowl media day with questions for Mahomes and Kelce, among others, that drew some social media attention. Shertenlieb, who lost his gig at WZLX amid iHeartMedia layoffs in November, said there’s “nothing to say now” about potential future endeavors.