Tom Brady post retirement business (Getty Images)
Tom Brady retired for good in February 2023, but his earning years never stopped. Fox Sports pays him $375 million over ten years to call NFL games. The pattern is clear: a quarterback who spent 23 seasons managing risk on the field now spreads it across several businesses.
He also owns a slice of the Las Vegas Raiders, a piece of the WNBA’s Aces and a minority stake in English club Birmingham City. His wellness and clothing brands now sit inside Nobull.
He and Knighthead Capital co-founder Tom Wagner bought a combined 10% stake, which leaves Brady with roughly 5%. Reports put the entry price at a valuation of about $3.5 billion, with roughly $220 million invested. CNBC had valued the team far higher, at $7.8 billion, which is why other owners pushed back. The pair also owed a 10% flip tax, shared among the league’s other owners. Owners finally voted yes in October 2024. The vote was 32-0. In March 2023 Brady bought a minority stake in the Las Vegas Aces, which Davis also owns. In August 2023 he became a minority owner and chairman of the club’s advisory board, in partnership with Knighthead Capital. His share is small, around 3.3%. Knighthead manages about $10 billion, so Brady is partnering with serious institutional money rather than going it alone.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, “There’s a lot of interest from former players. Brady did not buy alone. Brady’s role comes with fences around it. He cannot attend production meetings, in person or virtually, and has no access to team facilities, players or coaches. He can still broadcast Raiders games. League rules also bar him from publicly criticizing officials or other clubs. Las Vegas is the center of his sports portfolio, but not the edge of it. The Aces were the reigning WNBA champions at the time, so he joined a team that already knew how to win. Birmingham City came five months later. The ride has been bumpy. The club dropped down a division and has since returned to the Championship. Wagner is the thread that connects much of this. Brady and Wagner have also co-invested in a Major League Pickleball team and an auto-racing team in the World Endurance Championship. That is a smart way to learn a new trade. He brings the name and the access, and his partner brings the balance sheet and the deal experience. The bigger question is structural. Brady is a broadcaster who owns part of a team he sometimes has to call games for, and he has faced criticism over that overlap. During a Fox playoff broadcast he spoke about the Raiders’ coaching search and his own future at the network. The arrangement works only as long as the league, Fox and the Raiders all stay comfortable with it. Everything else in the portfolio is easier to measure.