In place for months, Tom Brady‘s agreement to buy a Raiders stake remains on hold ahead of a crucial point. The next round of NFL owners’ meetings are set to begin Oct. 17, and the Washington Post’s Mark Maske and Nicki Jhabvala report Brady’s purchase is unlikely to be ratified at that point.
Brady’s stake of the franchise is believed to be between five and 10%, according to Maske and Jhabvala, who report owners have issues with the discounted price Mark Davis is offering the recently retired quarterback. Although minority pieces of a sports franchise are frequently sold for discounted rates — due to limited partners’ minimal contributions in franchise operations — the Post reports Davis may be offering Brady an approximate 70% discount to join his ownership group.
Multiple issues are clouding the deal, but the stake price appears to be the lead item. The former Patriots and Buccaneers passer has said he plans to play a “very passive” role as a Raiders owner, and he was recently approved as a part-owner of the Las Vegas Aces, a WNBA franchise Davis owns. Twenty-four owners must approve Brady’s share of the Raiders. As of now, that is not expected to take place at the upcoming meetings, which run from Oct. 17-18.
Support does exist among NFL brass and the league’s finance committee for Brady’s Raiders agreement to be approved, per Maske and Jhabvala. Brady remaining involved with the NFL would understandably be enticing for many, though the all-time great is also planning to begin a career as a FOX analyst in 2024. Brady agreed to a 10-year, $375MM contract in 2022 to become FOX’s lead analyst when his playing career ended. Brady, 46, delayed that move for a year, intending to take time off before committing fully. But the finance committee is not planning to approve Brady’s stake at the above-referenced price.
Considering Brady’s popularity, it is certainly notable this many “no” votes are in place. The other issues holding up a deal are not known, but Brady agreed to become a Raiders part-owner less than a year after the NFL slapped the Dolphins with a steep penalty — loss of a 2023 first-round pick and a 2024 third — for a tampering scandal in which the AFC East franchise eyed Brady as a player/owner and Sean Payton as head coach. That arrangement would have needed full ownership approval, which seemed unlikely given how Brady’s talent could have affected other teams under that plan. Brady serving as a Raiders player/owner — a scenario that has been shot down on multiple occasions — would also need 31 “yes” votes; that would also be viewed as unlikely.
Unlike last year, Brady has said he is done for good. The Jets were not planning to reach out to the future first-ballot Hall of Famer after Aaron Rodgers‘ injury. The Raiders have used fourth-round rookie Aidan O’Connell as Jimmy Garoppolo‘s backup, though the team did look into Brady as a player before his February retirement.
For now, Brady remains unattached. But it is not out of the question the remaining issues are resolved and the 23-year veteran signs on in a Raiders ownership-only role. The next round of meetings are scheduled for Dec. 12-13.
Why would Fox pay Brady that type of money? People are going to watch the games regardless. Who is going to watch the game just to hear or see him? Don’t make sense.
The same reason I prefer to watch games that Romo is on vs collinsworth.
You can’t watch Romo or Collinsworth. You get creepy Chris no matter what or you don’t watch the game
Creepy Chris, the “Ugly American” who thinks the Super Bowl winner is automatically “world champion”. Murica, F@&k Yeah!
Lots and lots of Brady fans out there. And also many bad analysts currently on the air.
I don’t think analysts are needed for sporting events or adult movies. You could probably watch either of those with the remote control “muted” and still have a pretty good idea of what is happening.
You may know what’s happening on mute, but I’m telling you…it’s weird. I’ve watched an MLB game where there was a technical difficulty on the broadcast. All I could hear was the crowd, the umps and the crack of the bat as it made contact with the ball. It was cool at first, but there was much to be desired. Yes it was a baseball game, but I expect that after a few Qtrs it would get annoying. Especially when there’s calls being made & you get frustrated that you missed what happened.
Those Brady fans include most if not all of the National Sports Media and New York Sports Media.
link to youtu.be
This seems quite petty.
I’m sure that Brady will yell at his investors the same way he yelled at his receivers every single time he threw an incompletion.
Sorry, I’m a Steeler fan, I can’t help it because he beat my team like a drum every single time.
How exactly is it going to be considered OK for Brady to be a Raiders minority owner and a FOX analyst at the same time? It’s one thing if a former player slightly favors his former team(s) as an analyst, that’s human nature and forgivable to a small degree. It’s quite another for an analyst to have active ownership of a team, no matter how “passive” it might be. That just screams “conflict of interest” to me”.
Well since the Raiders are an AFC team which means they are primarily broadcast on CBS and they suck (and I’ve been a fan for over 50 years) which means they are unlikely to get anything above FOX’s 4th or 5th string broadcast team the 1 or 2 times a year they are on the network this is really not an issue.
Cincinnati and Houston are AFC teams, too, yet their away games this week are on Fox.
It’s not Pete Rozelle Time anymore.
They do flex some games…..
I’m well aware that games are now flexed between CBS and Fox and it, sadly, is no longer Pete Rozelle time.
So the Raiders might get 3-4 FOX games instead of 1-2 my point remains the same. That they are horrible and if Brady ever gets in the booth, which I still have my doubts about, he’ll be part of the #1 crew which the Raiders will never see. And even if he does a Raider game and shows some “favoritism” towards them who cares? It’s not like he’s an on field official he’s an #$%^ color commentator. How does whatever he, or any other moron in the booth says affect the game on the field? It doesn’t. It will just give a whole bunch of clueless people something else to get their panties in a bunch about.
Finally the fact he may have anything to do with a team I’ve rooted for for over 50 years nauseates me. I think if he ever does actually do games he’ll be awful because in his entire career I have yet to hear him say anything remotely interesting.
True, it’s not as likely as some cases, but it could still easily happen. All the Raiders have to do is play one of Fox’s teams.
Brady, as a studio analyst, would have to interview players and staff from both teams, as well as have access to other information from other teams. The value of that information might be insignificant, or it could be as simple as knowing about an injury that otherwise would be obfuscated in public. That’s an advantage other teams won’t have. And, even if we dismiss that possibility, how many of the interviewed personnel would trust an owner of another team to talk about strategy, player statuses, or strengths or weaknesses? It doesn’t seem right that someone with a vested interest in the success of a franchise should have access to that.
Those who scoff at the idea of information being shared are probably right in that Brady would likely not be able to act effectively as a conduit to the field, and he probably wouldn’t use his job just for that purpose. But at the end of the day, we’re basically opening up the chance and just trusting him to not do it. It has also become taboo in polite society to bring this up, but Brady has been caught skirting the rules before. No matter how good he was, he definitely has a history of not doing what he was supposed to. It would be pretty irresponsible to just assume that he wouldn’t do so again, just because he was great at football.
So what’s the issue? Like what negatives would result from the conflict of interest?
What’s he going to do, just praise the Raiders during the broadcast while bashing the other team?
It’s not so much that I think he will, because I don’t.
It’s that he would be in the position where he could. Any comment he would make about the Raiders, or even related in any way to the Raiders, would come under intense scrutiny and get reinterpreted 200 different ways. And it doesn’t have to be a Raider game for Raider-related topics to surface during the broadcast.
A previous commenter pointed out that the Raiders aren’t on FOX as often, which is true but less true than it used to be; there is more sharing of conference games now than even a few years ago.
I’m not bashing Brady so much as I’m questioning the wisdom of the idea. But those of who who have responded may be right, I could be making too much of this.
You must have missed the Troy Aikman colour commented Cowboys games. There’s no way Brady could out home team Aikman, and nobody blinks an eye.
Mark Sanchez on the LA vs SF game seemed pretty pro LA during the broadcast
Aikman doesn’t own part of the Cowboys
What difference does that make? Aikman is an impossible homer. Brady, even as an owner of the Raiders, couldn’t possibly out do Aikman.
I’m not a Brady fan but I like petty, hypocritical owners even less. Tom isn’t the kind of person to accept an insult like this without firing back. Maybe he’ll give the owners the middle finger by skipping his own HOF induction ceremony. That would really leave the owners with egg on their faces.
Still not sure how even a minority stake owner can be a broadcast analyst for the same league. Seems very conflict of interest. Assuming Fox broadcasts or any for that matter have integrity.
Greatest cheater of all time – thus Vegas is the perfect place for him.
The owners are chapped because his discount is “too big?” Why do they care? What a bunch of greedy, jealous human skid marks…..
There is no NFL tradition quite like rejecting Raiders ownership decisions. They’ve been doing it all the way back to the times of Pete Rozelle. If the last name of the owner making this deal was Kraft, Mara, Rooney, or Jones instead of Davis it wouldn’t be an issue.
If you don’t understand why NFL owners don’t want their franchises (or pieces of them) sold at 70% discounts…
1972 Robert Irsay and Carroll Rosenbloom traded ownership of the LA Rams and Baltimore Colts. The franchises weren’t worth the same, but the deal saved Carroll millions in terms of capital gains taxes. This isn’t even selling a team it’s selling part of ownership of a team 5-10%. It wouldn’t affect the value if Davis decided to actually sell the Raiders.
These owners are total hypocrites because we all know that if they could snatch up Wembley Stadium or other top tier playing venues in Europe at a 70% discount (to facilitate their expansion plan) they would do it in a heartbeat.