Blake Martinez played for the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants as one of the league’s leading tacklers. He retired prior to last season and has found an easier way to take down big bucks.
Martinez started Blake’s Breaks in July. He sells Pokemon cards. CNBC has an article saying Martinez has made more than $5 million in seven months in the collectible reselling market.
A quarter of that revenue gets reinvested back into Blake’s Breaks, Martinez says. The rest is take-home pay for himself and his 15 contract employees.
“I think there’s more to my success than [my name],” Martinez tells CNBC Make It. “I used to be like the quarterback of the defense, I was calling plays. When I started this business, it felt like running a team again.
The business does have one “injury” issue.
“Every single day when I wake up, my shoulder doesn’t hurt and my back doesn’t hurt anymore,” Martinez says. “When all that hurts are my fingers from opening, like, 1,000 packs of cards per day, I think, ‘I’m going to keep doing this.’”
In October, one card sold for more than $670,000 with the buyer’s premium.
