A Super Bowl Sunday Splash! report suggested that Tom Brady is moving closer to having his effort to buy a piece of the Raiders approved. Now? Not.
Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that NFL owners are not expected during next week’s annual meetings to vote on Brady’s bid, “barring a last-minute change.”
The deal was done more than a year ago. The effort originally became derailed when the NFL adopted a rule prohibited owners from giving equity to employees. Raiders owner Mark Davis spoke out against the change; it’s believed he wanted to use employment by Brady as a way to partially consummate the deal.
Since then, it became clear that Davis had agreed to sell roughly 10 percent of the team at a deep discount. That doesn’t sit well with the other owners, since it tends to devalue their equity, too.
Another potential issue is Brady’s looming debut with Fox as the network’s No. 1 analyst for NFL games. It’s an obvious conflict of interest for Brady, who will have a natural rooting interest for the Raiders — and against any team with which they’re competing. Coaches of certain teams reasonably would and should bar him from practice and/or production meetings.
But, hey, it’s Tom Brady. He tends to get what he wants. Except when it has to do with the air pressure of certain footballs and/or the whereabouts of certain phones.
