I'm Not Saying Brady Chose the Bucs Just So He Could Sell 'Tompa Bay' and 'Tampa Brady' Gear, but I'm Not Saying He Didn't

Admittedly, there are plenty of reasons for Brady to have chosen the Buccaneers over any other team. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin for two. It's warm there and it's about a thousand miles closer to his place in Costa Rica. He gets to rent Derek Jeter's place. And he gets to play for the human crying/laughing emoji that is Bruce Arians. Granted a seventh ring is pretty much out of the question, going from playing with the No.1 defense to the No. 29. But there are worse situations to semi-retire to. 

So I'm not necessarily saying that he chose the only available market where he could sell pun-based merchandise. But I'm not dismissing the idea either. Brady has, at most, three years to really drive his own personal merch. Once you're out of the competitive spotlight, that revenue stream runs dry, fast. And don't Michael Jordan me. He's more than an outlier, he's a totally unique case, coming along at exactly the right time to create and ride the high end shoe market. There'll never be another Jordan. Instead, look at the example of Tiger Woods, who looked for a while like his career was effectively over, and Nike responded by shutting down their golf gear business altogether. The only people you see selling t-shirts with their names and trademarks on them post-retirement are the ones sitting behind tables at ComicCons. 

And let's not forget, TEB Capital Management have been looking for new ways to sell his brand for a while now. 

So what better market to go to than Tampa? How else was he going to sign and still be able to create a short, catchy easily understood, play on words?

• The Tom Angeles Chargers? LA Brardgers? (Uh, nope.)
• The Tom Vegas Raiders? Las Vegas Braiders? (Possibly.)
• The Tommassee Titan? Tennessee Tomans? (Definitely not.)
• The Houstom Texans? Houston Tomxans? (Puke.)

No, this was too perfect. It flows off the tongue. It's easy, low-hanging fruit. Don Draper could do a five minute speech about how it evokes a sense of time and place and makes you want to live in that world or some such nonsense. 

So kudos to Brady, his marketing people and TEB Capital Management for figuring out how to make a thing out of him going to the franchise with the lowest win percentage in NFL history and make money off it. But I'll stick with the quality gear.