Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Tom Brady retired from the NFL in February 2023 after 23 seasons, the last three with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the twenty before that with the New England Patriots. Over that career he earned $332 million in NFL salary, though the number routinely understates his total income by hundreds of millions when endorsements and business ventures are added.

His net worth is estimated around $300 million as of 2025, down from what many expected given the scale of his earnings. The divorce from Gisele Bündchen in late 2022, the collapse of FTX, and the early-stage nature of several business ventures all compressed the number. Still, $300 million is significant, and the current portfolio trajectory is toward growth.

The Fox Sports Anchor

The clearest pillar of Brady's post-retirement financial life is his broadcasting contract. In 2022, he signed a 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox Sports to become their lead NFL analyst. He began in 2024 at $37.5 million per year, making it the most lucrative broadcasting contract in sports history. Fox's NFL ratings have faced competitive pressure from CBS and NBC in the regular season, but Brady's contract is structured to pay regardless.

The deal does more than provide income. It keeps him in weekly national visibility for a decade, maintaining brand relevance that makes every other business easier.

TB12, BRADY Brand, and the Wellness Side

In 2013 Brady co-founded TB12 Sports with his body coach Alex Guerrero, built around his performance and recovery philosophy. The company expanded to include physical therapy centers, nutritional supplements, fitness equipment, and an apparel line. TB12 was subsequently acquired by NOBULL, the performance footwear and apparel company.

He also launched the BRADY apparel brand, a separate premium athletic wear line, and co-founded 199 Productions, a media production company named for the draft pick he was in the 2000 NFL Draft (he was the 199th pick overall, which says something about draft evaluation).

Sports Ownership

In March 2023 Brady purchased a minority stake in the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces. In August 2023 he became a minority owner of Birmingham City FC in England alongside Knighthead Capital Management. He is also invested in Major League Pickleball through an ownership group. These sports ownership positions follow the playbook that athletes with large platforms have increasingly adopted, using celebrity credibility to get into ownership structures at favorable terms.

Autograph: The NFT Platform That Pivoted

Brady co-founded Autograph in 2021 as an NFT platform connecting celebrities with digital collectibles. It raised $200 million by 2022, with its Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. The board included Eddy Cue from Apple, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (an early warning sign in hindsight), and artist The Weeknd. Partners included Tiger Woods, Simone Biles, Derek Jeter, and Wayne Gretzky.

Then the NFT market collapsed in 2022. Autograph relaunched in 2024 with a new model focused on fan engagement rather than collectibles, aggregating sports content into personalized feeds and rewarding users with redeemable digital points for attending games and consuming media. The blockchain infrastructure is still there, but it's no longer the primary pitch.

Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund has noted that the founders who survive market shifts are the ones who stay committed to the underlying problem, access between fans and athletes, rather than to the specific mechanism that stopped working. Autograph's pivot reflects exactly that kind of problem-first thinking. It's a lesson Angel Squad members encounter often when evaluating consumer tech startups that have to navigate market shifts mid-flight.

The FTX Loss

In 2021, Brady became a brand ambassador for FTX and received equity in the cryptocurrency exchange. Court documents from 2023 revealed he held 1,144,861 FTX common shares. Based on the valuations of other major holders, those shares were worth roughly $35.7 million at peak. When FTX collapsed in November 2022, the shares became worthless. Brady and several other celebrities were named in a class-action lawsuit from investors who said they were misled. The case is ongoing.

Angel Squad members evaluating investments with celebrity board endorsements should note what the FTX situation illustrates: celebrity involvement is not due diligence. Shiyan Koh of Hustle Fund has made this point clearly when discussing how Angel Squad members should approach deal evaluation. 

The name on the cap table matters far less than the underlying business fundamentals. That's precisely why Angel Squad focuses on co-investing with experienced GPs who do the operational analysis, not on following celebrity signals. Learn more at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The Takeaway

Brady's post-football career is a mixed record so far. The Fox deal is exceptional. Autograph survived a difficult pivot. Birmingham City and the Las Vegas Aces are long-term bets. The FTX investment was a genuine loss. TB12 found an acquirer. The BRADY brand continues.

His best financial move was probably accepting below-market NFL contracts for two decades on the assumption that winning consistently would create brand value that exceeded the salary foregone. That calculation turned out to be correct.