Tom Brady Adds Sportswashing To His Impressive Résumé

Who says Tom Brady can't have it all? On top of the conflict of interest that comes with being both a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and a Fox Sports commentator, and in between his duties as "guy who says fuck and denigrates Birmingham City, the soccer club he co-owns," Brady has now signed up to do some good old fashioned sportswashing. On Monday, Brady announced that he will return to the football field for the—ugh—Fanatics Flag Football Classic, a three-team tournament set to be held in March of 2026 in Saudi Arabia.

That unholy trinity was announced during the Raiders' 20-9 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football, a game Brady attended as part of his ownership of the Raiders. Joining him in the announcement was Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, whose stated mission is to promote and grow the country's entertainment sector, while its unstated mission is to make everyone associate Saudi Arabia with the pinnacle of sports and not with a whole lot of human rights abuses. So far, it appears that the GEA has been mostly successful, if the caliber of willing partners is to be believed: Brady and Co. join a luminary group that also features WWE, golf, tennis, and soccer. (Alalshikh was conveniently already in Las Vegas for this announcement, given that he was overseeing the Canelo Álvarez-Terence Crawford fight on Saturday as one of the fight's promoters, so we can add boxing to the list.)

The tournament will consist of three teams, coached by Pete Carroll, Sean Payton, and Kyle Shanahan, playing a round-robin group stage followed by a championship match. Joining Brady on the field will be serial bag-getter Saquon Barkley; Rob Gronkowski, the Scrappy-Doo to our fancy dog's Scooby; and a slew of other NFL players: CeeDee Lamb, Christian McCaffrey, Sauce Gardner, Myles Garrett, Brock Bowers, Maxx Crosby, Tyreek Hill, and Odell Beckham Jr. The announcement also revealed that athletes from other sports, as well as unnamed celebrities, will take part as well.

Speaking like a normal person and certainly not a newly minted ambassador for the Saudi regime, Brady said that he's "always admired the power of flag football, the fastest-growing sport in the world, and how it connects fans of all ages," and that "it felt like the perfect time for me to hit the field again and get my competitive juices flowing." While I do believe that Brady has been going nuts not playing in the NFL, I would love to hear how big his payout is for this stunt before I believe that he's doing it for the love of the game.

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