The active career of the best quarterback in history is now finally and officially over. Less because it’s completely okay to no longer subject a 47-year-old body to the rigors and dangers of an American football season. But because Tom Brady bought himself in as a minority owner of the <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/01/nfl-raiders-defeated-chargers-in-final-play-in-overtime/" title="NFL: Raiders defeated Chargers in final play in overtime”>Las Vegas Raiders. Because that means, according to the regulations of the US football league NFL, that he will no longer be active may.
Owners of the 32 NFL franchises voted at last week’s annual meeting to give Brady five percent of the Raiders’ shares for about $300 million and an investor group in which Brady has a stake would receive another five percent for the same amount. The Raiders are therefore worth around six billion dollars, and given the development of the NFL and Las Vegas as a sports metropolis, it can be predicted that this will not decrease in the coming years. So it’s a smart move for anyone with enough money to do this – but money certainly isn’t the main reason for Brady.
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“I didn’t particularly like him for a long time,” says Raiders majority owner Mark Davis, raising the first question of this deal: Why does Brady want to be involved in the Raiders? As a child he was a fan of the San Francisco 49ers, as a playmaker he won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What connects him with the Raiders is that his unrealistically magnificent career against the Raiders had only just begun: in the first playoff game of his career in January 2002, the referees made a decision that they are still debating in the USA today like they are in Europe at Wembley goal in 1966. It fell against the Raiders and against Brady, who became champions for the first time a few weeks later.
If you wanted to be successful with Brady back then, you had better become a football obsessive yourself
“He has now admitted that he lost the ball at the time; “That was important to me,” says Davis now. Brady did this in the documentary The Tuck Rule, but it wasn’t the most significant statement in that film. This one is more important because it explains the guy Tom Brady and also why he wants to work in Las Vegas in the future: “I’ve been very lucky in my career. But: I would have found a way to be successful.”
What Brady understood as a student: the individual’s contribution is limited in team sports, and there are many imponderable and uncontrollable elements such as injuries, weather or, see 2002 playoffs: referee decisions. So it could be that you are the very best and play brilliantly – and still lose. But what must never happen in Brady’s worldview is that his team loses because is was not prepared. His mantra (“Control the controllable”) fit like a glove with that of the Patriots, for whom he worked for 20 seasons: “Do your job!”
The best determines the culture; not just at a sports club, but at every workplace. Which employee would dare not do his job when the best in history shows others what it means to focus your life entirely on football and to subordinate everything to success? That was Brady: a man possessed. If you wanted to be successful with him, you better become an obsessive yourself.
And what does someone do who is no longer allowed to be obsessed because he has won everything?
Like so many former quarterback celebrities, he became a commentator. The TV network Fox gave him a ten-year contract worth $375 million and will increase Brady’s personal fortune to more than a billion dollars. Together with Kevin Burkhardt, he comments on the top Fox game, on Sunday: 49ers against defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. Burkhardt wrote in a text message to the SZ that he had never seen anyone prepare so meticulously for this job: Brady had demanded that the two comment on a complete 17-game trial season in preparation for what was actually to come would.
But is it enough to compete from the commentary box with other former quarterbacks such as Tony Romo (CBS), Drew Brees (Amazon), Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman (both ESPN)? The quarterback may be the most important figure on the field, but who really determines what happens in the NFL and American football are the owners of the 32 clubs, who make all the decisions with Commissioner Roger Goodell (employee of the owners). So Brady has now further expanded his power in this cosmos that has been his life since childhood.
Las Vegas is the perfect place for him because: He wants to win; Hardly any other sports city is as predestined for this as Vegas, which wants to become a sports mecca from a den of sin. Brady was already a minority owner of the Aces women’s basketball team, which became champions in 2022 and 2023. There are rumors that he could be involved in the NBA team, which is expected to be based in Vegas in the planned expansion in 2027 and led by LeBron James.
But now first the Raiders, who haven’t won a title in more than 40 years and are currently in the process of rebuilding – as shown by the most recent trade in which Vegas sent receiver Davante Adams to the New York Jets in exchange for the right to vote at the talent exchange during the coming summer break.
During his playing days, Brady bent the rules to achieve maximum success
Brady should help in the search for a franchise quarterback for the future, even if he has to be a little careful because of his commentary work: According to the regulations, in addition to other restrictions (no public criticism of referees), he is not allowed to attend training sessions of other teams or players praise so much that it could be construed as a lure to the Raiders. But if Brady has proven anything else during his playing career, it’s this: He bends the rules so that he has the greatest possible success and always gets away with it. In US sports, this is not seen as a weakness, but as a quality.
“In my playing career I have learned that football is about teamwork, resilience and the relentless pursuit of excellence. “Las Vegas and the Raiders embody those values,” Brady said in a statement that ended with what he considers most important: “Winning football games.” That was exactly the fixed star for the legendary, late Raiders owner Al Davis; he said: “Just win, baby!” Son Mark now runs the business, when he moved to Vegas he had a huge torch built in the new stadium in memory of his father, with this quote: “The fire that burns brightest in the Raiders organization, is the will to win.” Brady has found the perfect home for his next career in the football world.
