Tom Brady is expected to be approved as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders at Tuesday’s NFL fall owners meeting in Atlanta, league sources told ESPN on Saturday.
The NFL’s finance committee has reviewed Brady’s bid and plans to bring it to the other owners to vote, with 24 of the league’s 32 owners needed to approve it.
However, as one source told ESPN, the committee would not be bringing Brady’s bid to the owners for a vote if it were not going to be approved, which now appears to be a formality.
The finance committee unanimously approved Brady as a minority owner, and no one could recall the last time owners voted against the finance committee’s unanimous recommendation, sources told ESPN.
Brady is therefore just days away from purchasing approximately 10% of the Raiders, alongside businessman Tom Wagner, from owner Mark Davis. This transaction, initially agreed to in May 2023, needed refinement after the league’s financial committee deemed the initial offer too discounted.
“We’re excited for Tom to join the Raiders,” Davis told ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez at the time of the initial agreement. “And it’s exciting because he will be just the third player in the history of the National Football League to become an owner.”
George Halas and Jerry Richardson are the other two.
Prior to what turned out to be Brady’s final NFL season in 2022, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback agreed to a 10-year, $375 million contract to join Fox as an analyst once his playing career concluded. He officially retired in 2023 and is set to begin his role at Fox for the 2024 season.
At 47, Brady is expected to become one of the highest-profile former athletes to own a piece of an NFL team. He joins the ranks of all-time greats such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Dwyane Wade, Alex Rodriguez, Mario Lemieux, Patrick Mahomes, Warrick Dunn, John Stallworth, and Lewis Hamilton, who have also taken ownership stakes in various franchises.