Legendary NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw had joined CBS as a game analyst in 1984 on a $100,000-a-year deal after Brent Musburger tracked him down at his ranch, working alongside Verne Lundquist for 3-4 seasons before realizing he’d never be No. 1 behind John Madden’s monolithic presence on the Network. That competitiveness pushed him out the door. But CBS didn’t let Bradshaw go. The network rebuilt The NFL Today from scratch, cutting Musburger & Co, and executive producer Ted Shaker came back to Bradshaw with an offer nearly eight times what he’d first walked away from.

“April 1st I got a phone call,” And Shaker, he said, ‘I know you said you didn’t want to do more broadcasting. But we are redoing The NFL Today show. We’re getting rid of everybody. Brent Musburger, Phyllis George, all of them… And I said, ‘Wow! Really?’ And, ‘We’re wondering, would you come and let us make you the face of our NFL Today?’ ‘Are you serious?’ “We’ll give you $750,000 a year.”

Speaking on the Glass Half Full podcast with Craig Melvin, Bradshaw admitted that he took the deal, both because it was an opportunity he couldn’t miss and also because of the money. And he’s never pretended otherwise. But on the podcast, Bradshaw also compared that number to a $2M deal he turned down.

“I’ve never done anything in my life just for money. I mean, I turned down a condom deal with almost $2 million.”

Glass Hall Full’s Craig Melvin caught the contradiction immediately and asked if Terry took the $750,000 deal because of the money. Bradshaw, sharing a laugh with Melvin, agreed, saying, “Yeah, yeah.”

More than the $750,000-a-year deal, it was the opportunity to be the face of the network that may have influenced Bradshaw’s decision to return in 1990. Bradshaw became the studio analyst alongside Greg Gumbel and ran The NFL Today until 1993.

As for the advertisement deal he declined, while Bradshaw didn’t reveal when he refused that offer, his decision matched what networks had followed for years. Fox became the first major network to accept condom ads in 1991, while CBS had held out on similar commercials through the 90s. Multiple reports have documented refusals arising from various factors as late as 2014.

Now, that second CBS deal he accepted was only the beginning for Terry Bradshaw. When Fox bought NFL rights away from CBS in 1994, they saw what Bradshaw had built at CBS, and built Fox NFL Sunday around him – a seat he has held to this day. The $750,000 was never the deciding factor for Bradshaw; it was always the chair.