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Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman and Snoop Dogg are among the celebrity narrators lending their voices to the Hall of Excellence, a new sports memorabilia museum that’s popped up at Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
Created in partnership with Super Bowl champion Tom Brady along with legendary sportscaster Jim Gray and his wife Frann Vettor-Gray, the Hall of Excellence features two large rooms of uniforms, sneakers, accessories and other sporting gear worn by some of the biggest athletes of all time. Ticket stubs, programs, game-day balls and rare artwork also line the display cases, which all lead towards a grandiose Trophy Room, where the Vince Lombardi Trophy, Heisman Trophy, MLB Commissioners Trophy and NBA Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy are among the laurels on view. In fact, almost all the major sporting event trophies are available to view at the Hall, including college trophies and Olympic gold medals.
Seven-time Super Bowl champ Brady has his own section, that features all seven of his Super Bowl rings, along with a brief description of each game-winning moment. Visitors can also listen to Brady narrate the story behind each ring as part of the exhibit’s audio tour.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas
The Hall’s main self-guided tour is narrated by Academy Award winner Freeman, while Winfrey, Snoop Dogg, Marv Albert and others, each narrate a different exhibit. It isn’t just sports either: Winfrey’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and 2016 Tony Award for “The Color Purple” revival are also on display, as is Clint Eastwood’s 1993 Oscar for “Unforgiven.”
Other highlights include the bat used by Jackie Robinson to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947; Michael Jordan’s first pair of Air Jordans; Muhammad Ali’s robe and gloves from his fight versus George Chuvalo in 1966; a golf ball used by Tiger Woods during his first Masters victory; and the Washington Capitals jersey worn by Alexander Ovechkin the night he tied Wayne Gretzky’s NHL scoring record earlier this year.
There is also a collection of golf balls and baseballs signed by President Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and a number of other U.S. Presidents dating back to Woodrow Wilson.
Worth noting: women’s sports and female athletes are also well-represented among the more than 300 items on display. Pieces include dresses worn by Serena Williams and Billie Jean King, a leotard worn by Simone Biles and the Las Vegas Aces WNBA Championship rings from 2022 and 2023.
Brady helped to put many of these items together, drawing from his and Gray’s personal collections and tapping into his network of friends and former teammates. “The Hall of Excellence is about more than preserving history – it is about celebrating the relentless pursuit of greatness,” the NFL star says in a release. “So much of this memorabilia represents the incredible journey that I, like so many others, have been fortunate enough to experience. Artifacts like these do not belong hidden away, they should be shared with the fans who were along for the journey with us.”
Fontainebleau Las Vegas, meantime, says the items represent a “carefully curated collection of exclusive and extraordinary artifacts,” with Chairman and CEO of Fontainebleau Development, Jeffrey Soffer, calling it a “first-hand look at history through the eyes of the world’s most beloved athletes and entertainers.”
The Hall of Excellence is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admission costs $35 per person and tickets are available here.
Brady, meantime, is back for another season as part of the “NFL on FOX” broadcast team. The NFL star joined the FOX broadcast booth as a lead game analyst last year.
