Editor’s note: This story was published on Oct. 14, the day before NFL owners reportedly voted unanimously to approve Tom Brady as a minority owner in the Raiders.
The NFL’s GOAT is at last poised to enter the ranks of team ownership.
Former quarterback Tom Brady, widely considered to be the league’s greatest-ever player, will finally have his long-delayed bid to become a Raiders part-owner brought before other NFL team owners for approval, according to industry sources and multiple reports. Brady’s proposal to become a roughly 10% Raiders equity holder, along with business partner Tom Wagner, has cleared the league’s finance committee and is set to be brought before the full ownership during the NFL’s fall business meeting Tuesday in Atlanta.
Approval will require 24 of 32 team owners, and that vote is now expected to be a formality after the finance committee unanimously cleared the transaction.
The 47-year-old Brady, who has grown close with Raiders majority owner Mark Davis, has been actively working on this deal for nearly two years, but it has run into several obstacles, including concerns within the league that he was receiving a hefty discount on the value of the team equity. Brady and Wagner have since increased their offer to an undisclosed figure. Las Vegas is currently estimated to be worth $6.7 billion, the seventh highest in the league.
Davis will remain the Raiders’ majority owner, but Brady is expected to have a significant role in Las Vegas’s football operations—not surprising given his unrivaled status as a seven-time Super Bowl winner.
Brady also owns a minority share of the Davis-led Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA.
Fox Restrictions
Brady—also beginning a 10-year, $375 million broadcasting talent deal with Fox Sports that has included plenty of scrutiny on his booth performance—is already subject to several restrictions due to that pending dual owner/analyst role.
In anticipation of this deal potentially being completed, the NFL has created several rules for Brady. Among them is a prohibition on performing common television analyst functions such as attending broadcast production meetings with coaches and players, and watching practices.
Even with those rules, the Brady deal still presents the seeming conflict of owning part of one team while also covering all of them.
Other Meeting Matters
Several other issues are expected to be discussed at the owners meeting, including an update on television viewership for the league up by 1% so far this year, and is set for another boost with an expansion of the Monday Night Football simulcast schedule. Among the other pressing developments set for Tuesday:
- Owners will likely take a vote on a $1.4 billion renovation agreement for EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, home of the Jaguars. The public-private deal, calling for $775 million in taxpayer funds, will provide a dramatic upgrade to the 29-year-old facility.
- The NFL is set to award Super Bowl LXII in 2028 to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, according to a development initially reported by Sports Business Journal. That game is the next available Super Bowl still without a host as the next three games will be held in New Orleans; Santa Clara, Calif.; and Inglewood, Calif., respectively.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium last hosted the Super Bowl in 2019, a 13–3 victory for the Patriots over the Rams, and the venue remains one of the most technologically advanced sports facilities in the world.
