The National Football League's all-time greatest quarterback Tom Brady is reportedly retiring after 22 seasons and seven Super Bowl wins but ends his football career far from highest-paid player in the league.
Brady, who would finish his final season with a playoff loss Sunday versus the Los Angeles Rams, was only the 17th highest-paid player in the NFL during the 2021 season, tied with Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr and Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett at $25 million each. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the league's high-paid player, earning $45 million for the 2021 season.
It's estimated that Tom Brady has a net worth of $250 million, according to celebritynetworth.com. If you add his wife Gisele Bundchen's $400 million net worth into the calculation, the couple's number is closer to $650 million.
Tom Brady making this much money is how he can splurge on things like $16,000 diets, extensive training routines and real estate.
Fans know Brady's story inside and out. A quarterback at Michigan who struggled to get playing time before his junior year, he wasn't drafted until pick 199 in the sixth round by the New England Patriots. He then went on to become the greatest quarterback in NFL history, winning seven Super Bowls (appearing in 10) and five Super Bowl MVPs.
Brady in March 2020 signed a two-year, $50 million contract with the Buccaneers that had incentive bonuses up to $4.5 million each year. After playing 20 years with the New England Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick, creating a resume for the ages and combining to form the greatest dynasty in NFL history, Brady opted out of the final two years of his contract with the Patriots and entered free agency.
Tom Brady's Contracts
Tom Brady played in the NFL for over two full decades and spent nearly all of them as either the top or one of the top quarterbacks in football. Yet in an era where quarterbacks can make $20 million a year as long as they're mostly not terrible, Brady was something of a bargain for the Patriots. He restructured his deals multiple times to help the Patriots budget, and has converted a lot of his contract money into a "signing bonus." In 2017, his salary was technically $1 million - with a $14 million signing bonus.
Even as Brady helped his team with cap space he still made the sort of money an elite quarterback is expected to make, earning about $280 million playing in the NFL.
Brady has never not had a contract at any point in his career, and didn't play under his rookie contract long. After two years on the rookie contract - and one stunning Super Bowl win - Brady got his first contract extension just as the 2002 season was set to start, worth $30 million over four years. Not even three years later, Brady had helped get the team two more Super Bowl championships, and he received a shiny new extension as a result.
It was a far larger contract, paying him $60 million to keep him around through 2010. And he was worth it; this was the period where he went from a statistically above-average quarterback to one of the elites, winning his first MVP award in 2007. A year before that contract was set to expire, Brady signed his largest extension yet, four years and worth $72 million. In 2013, they added even more years to the deal, but at a discount: $27 million for three years. The last extension came in 2016 with a signing bonus of $28 million and an agreement for Brady to stick around through 2019.
Brady's base salary for 2019 was going to be $14 million with a $1 million roster bonus, a bargain compared to other quarterbacks in the league who have a fraction of the resume he had. But Brady then got a brand new deal that increased his salary to $23 million for the 2019 season.
That contract also, in theory, could have seen him making over $30 million in both 2020 and 2021. However, this deal had a provision where the final two years voided after the 2019 season. And because the contract also stipulated that the Patriots could not place the franchise or transition tag on Brady, at the end of the 2019 NFL season Brady had the chance to become a free agent for the first time in his career.
And as soon as free agency began in 2020, Brady took that chance to become a free agent and informed personnel and fans alike that he would not be returning to New England. Not long after, reports emerged that Brady intended to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with both sides reportedly agreeing to a deal that would pay Brady $25 million per year, plus $4.5 million in annual incentive bonuses.
Tom Brady's Super Bowl Rings & Bonuses
Tom Brady's Patriots played in nine Super Bowls. They won six. In four of them, he was the Super Bowl MVP. He also won one with the Buccaneers and was MVP, too. That will net you a ton of respect from your peers (and in the case of the MVPs, some new cars) but it also triggers some nice bonuses as well.
Let's take those 7 championships, for example. The victory means bonuses for making it to the Super Bowl AND the additional bonus of winning. In the 2001 season, that added up to $63,000, and $68,000 apiece for the 2003 and 2004 Super Bowls. He received $97,000 for 2014, and then $107,000 for the unforgettable overtime victory over Atlanta for the 2016 season. In his last Super Bowl victory for the Patriots, he handily defeating the Los Angeles Rams in February 2019 and received a bonus of $118,000. That's $521,000 combined in six Super Bowl victory bonuses.
Brady's biggest Super Bowl payday, however, was for the 2020 season when he earned a $500,000 bonus for making the Super Bowl and $500,000 for winning the game.
And oh yeah, let's throw in the years he lost, too. His first Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants in 2007 got him $40,000, and the second for 2011 got him $44,000. The most recent loss to the Philadelphia Eagles meant that Brady got $56,000. That's $140,000 just for showing up. Combined, making the Super Bowl has put $664,000 in the pockets of Tom Brady. And that doesn't even factor in the bonuses players get from the OTHER playoff games.
How Much Are Tom Brady's Rings Worth?
That's a question without a definitive answer, but combined it would easily be somewhere in the six-digit range, and potentially in the millions. Their 2014 rings cost $36,500 each, and it's said that a Patriots Super Bowl ring could bring in as much as $50,000 if a player is looking to sell.
But Tom Brady isn't just another player. Rick Harrison from Pawn Stars theorized that a Tom Brady ring would bring the buyer at least $250,000. Brady is, of course, not actually selling his rings anytime soon. However, those rings provide quite a bit of value. Imagine showing one of those off at a Super Bowl party.
Tom Brady's Wife
Obviously she's much more than Tom Brady's wife. She's Gisele Bündchen, a fashion icon and the most successful supermodel of all-time. But if you're discussing how Tom Brady and his family make their living, she's even more important than football - because she makes more money than he does.
Gisele Bündchen is reportedly worth $400 million just by herself. Combined, that would mean the Brady-Bündchen household is worth about $650 million. On one hand she's half of a power couple; on the other, she's two-thirds of a power couple.
Bündchen has been a staple of the modeling world since the 1990s and has not disappeared from the public eye since; her run as the highest-earning model in the world lasted 15 years before Kendall Jenner broke it in 2017. That's because her salary in 2017 was down 43% from her 2016 salary, to just $17.5 million. Don't you feel bad for her?
How does she make that absurd level of money? Endorsements. Bündchen doesn't do quite as much modeling as she used to, but what she does is with major companies for big bucks like Chanel, and over the past couple of decades she's worked with Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein and Pantene.
She has also used her success to launch several business ventures, including a line of Ipanema flip-flops and Sejaa Pure, her line of skin care products.
Tom Brady's House
One would assume a family worth $540 million can afford one or two nice places to live, right? Brady and his family live in luxury wherever they go - and they have plenty of options for where to go.
His main house is in Brookline, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston close to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, and right next door to Patriots owner Robert Kraft. He bought it back in 2013 for $4.5 million, and the enormous mansion spans more than 14,000 square feet. A custom creation, this house features five bedrooms and a library (with a balcony!).
Brady also likes to make Manhattan his residence from time to time as well. Currently, the QB owns two massive apartments in the city as he tries to sell one of them. In 2014, he purchased a full-floor condo in One Madison, a luxury condo building, for $11.7 million. They've attempted to sell it several times over the past couple of years, going from a $17.25 million asking price in 2016 to, as of this writing, $13.95 million.
Why are they selling it? They prefer an even bigger, more lavish combo at 70 Vestry, a nearly finished new luxury condo building in Tribeca. An 11th floor condo, Brady purchased it for $20 million in 2016, and then in 2017 switched out for a more expensive condo on the 12th floor, likely a superstitious choice related to 12 being Brady's jersey number. 70 Vestry boasts amenities from spas to libraries, as well as a colorful children's playroom and a squash court.
They're all impressive real estate, and yet it may not even be the most impressive house Brady has ever owned. He and Bündchen bought a four-acre property in Brentwood, CA in 2008 for nearly $12 million. This place not only had the usual amenities of a Brady residence (five bedrooms, library, gym, sauna), it had a moat! When the couple decided to return to Massachusetts (and create a home without a moat) they sold the mansion for $40 million - to Dr. Dre.
Tom Brady's Endorsements
Brady earned about $31 million in endorsements in 2021, according to an estimate by Forbes. Brady's face has never been plastered all over TV screens the way Peyton Manning's was (and still is), but as an all-time great player, he's got plenty of companies looking to have him represent them.
One of his endorsements is Aston Martin, a British car manufacturer. Specifically, he was signed to endorse a car worth over $200,000. Brady also serves as the brand ambassador for TAG Heuer, an elite watch brand. A limited addition Brady watch complete with his jersey number sells on their site for $5,750.
Of course, he also endorses products for people who don't have $205,750 lying around. Brady has also had endorsement deals with Under Armour, UGG and Foot Locker. Considering he doesn't plan on retiring anytime soon, who knows what companies will line up next looking for his endorsement.
