Tom Brady Leads NFL in Jersey Sales Yet Again
Photo via AP
Despite endorsing a walking “Aristocrats” joke in a red tie for president in 2016 while playing in the thumping blue heart of liberal America, Tom Brady can still move a few jerseys.
The New England Patriots quarterback leads the NFL in jersey sales through the first two weeks of the regular season, accordng to the league’s official website. Dez Bryant of the Dallas Cowboys comes in second, followed by Odell Beckham, Jr. of the New York Giants, Pats man-child Rob Gronkowski, and Australian rugby player-turned-runningback Jarryd Hayne of the San Francisco 49ers. (Seventy percent of Hayne’s jersey sales came from down under.)
So either NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s bumbling smear campaign against his game’s most marketable star backfired spectacularly (a phenomenon not unlike the ending of Rocky IV), or Pats fans, caught in a fit of post-Deflategate euphoria, bought up No. 12 jerseys in celebration. If it’s the former, the league is having its cake and shoveling it down its greasy, gaping yapper too. And they never do that.
Brady’s Midas touch extends beyond the NFLShop. The black shirt he wears in a new Under Armour commercial bearing the number 199 (the number of the overall pick in the 2000 NFL Draft when the Patriots nabbed Brady) went on-sale September 10 and proceeded to sell out within hours.
Fellow Patriot Julian Edelman also cracked the top 25 in jersey sales, coming in at No. 16.
