According to a report, former National Football League quarterback Tom Brady was paid $55 million to feature in the collapse cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s advertisements. As part of the arrangement, Brady would devote 20 hours of his time each year for three years.
Celebrities Paid to Promote FTX
The former U.S. National Football League (NFL) quarterback Tom Brady was paid $55 million just to feature in the collapse crypto exchange FTX’s sports commercials. Brady’s fellow celebrity sportsman and basketball star Stephen Curry was reportedly paid $35 million to promote the crypto exchange.
Details of Brady and Curry’s outsized payments from Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)’s crypto exchange were made public by author Micheal Lewis. In his comments made during an interview, Lewis, who claims to have seen confidential documents that back his story, said as part of the deal Brady would devote just 20 hours of his time each year for three years.
Despite receiving millions of dollars worth of FTX stock as payment right before the crypto exchange’s collapse, Brady is thought to have suffered a loss of $30 million. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, Brady’s then-wife Gisele Bündchen similarly saw her net worth drop by $18 million after her FTX stock went up in smoke.
Discussing SBF’s then blossoming friendship with Brady, the author Lewis reportedly said:
“He really liked Tom Brady. And Sam wasn’t, like, a big sports person, so it was funny to watch that interaction. It was like, ‘These two people actually get along.’ It’s like the class nerd and the quarterback.”
However, according to Lewis, after FTX’s abrupt collapse in late 2022, an angry Brady was of the opinion that Bankman-Fried had tricked him into endorsing the crypto exchange. At that point, the former NFL quarterback did not want to “have anything to do with it [FTX] anymore.”
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