NFL quarterback and NFT creator Tom Brady officially announced his retirement Tuesday, saying he plans to spend more time with his family and work on his businesses.
Brady played for the New England Patriots for twenty years, winning a record 6 Super Bowls before joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and winning their seventh in XNUMX. ESPN reporter Adam Schefter first reported Brady's departure on Saturday.
"The future is exciting," Brady wrote in an Instagram post. "I'm lucky enough to have co-founded amazing companies as I'm thrilled to continue to help build and thrive, but just how my days will look will be a work in progress."
See this post on InstagramThe quarterback first announced Autograph, his NFT platform, in April XNUMX, saying the company would help athletes and other well-known personalities create and market their digital collectibles. The company partnered with DraftKings and Lionsgate to create NFTs based on movie franchises and sports stars.
Autograph raised US$XNUMX million earlier this month with the backing of venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Katie Haun and Kleiner Perkins. Mas Brady stated that he has been interested in cryptocurrencies for considerably longer than a year ago.
He told CoinDesk's XNUMX Deal Conference that he wanted to be part of the cryptocurrency industry after discussing it with one of his trainers already before the XNUMX season.
"It's really been a crash course this offseason, all of these things happen pretty quickly," he said at the time. "But obviously, the more I learned about crypto and blockchain technologies, I really wanted to be a part of building a huge platform that could create opportunities for myself, other artists, and other entertainment brands to create great collectibles."
Although Brady said he didn't think the NFL would pay its athletes directly in crypto at the time, he thinks a growing number of footballers might choose to invest in digital assets, saying they had invested in a cryptocurrency themselves.
Well, the laser eyes didn't work. Does anyone have any ideas? https://t.co/43WyShRxr2
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) June 2021, XNUMXCompared to football, Brady told Consensus that he enjoys playing with his "half-age" teammates as he felt he could guide these young players.
"It's not like I'm like, 'Wow, I've achieved this compared to what everyone else has, in my particular career,'" he said. "It's really about 'what were the opportunities that came my way, and based on each and every thing and experience that happened in my life, the people that came into my life, how can I make the most of it? my occasion?'"
At the time, he had just won his seventh Super Bowl, setting a record for having more NFL tournaments than any player or team in the league.
"I think competition brings out the best in everyone," Brady said.