Tom Brady kicks off two-day marquee Miami tech event. We’ll tell you what NFL great said

Retired quarterback Tom Brady has no plans to unretire to play for the Dolphins, but he expects to get more involved with technology startups, the part-time Miami resident and future first-ballot NFL Hall of Famer said Thursday, at the eMerge Americas global technology conference in Miami Beach Convention Center.

“I would not necessarily say I would root for them all the time, but I root for my friends to do well and several of them play for Miami,” Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, said in keynote remarks on opening day of the two-day tech event.

Most of the future Fox sportscaster’s comments during a question-and-answer session were inspirational, and delivered to a big crowd of technology, finance insiders and startup entrepreneurs gathered for the largest homegrown annual tech conference that started in 2014. He discussed topics such as grit, perseverance, and the importance of mentors and supportive family members.

He fielded questions from Melissa Medina, co-founder and president of eMerge Americas and Felice Gorordo, CEO of eMerge Americas.

In recent years, eMerge has drawn over 20,000 people from 50 countries to its annual event, as Miami’s tech and finance sectors keep growing and gaining global attention.

Nine years ago when the group helds its first gathering, Brady had three Super Bowl victories, only one more than Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese, who led the Dolphins to two Super Bowl wins the NFL’s only perfect season in 1972.

Back then in 2014, eMerge was a tiny group of inspired people thinking Miami could become a global tech hub. Since then, startups have launched at the conference, and investors and founders have moved here from across the United States.

“It is our time Miami, it is our time,” Medina said to open the conference.

“While the rest of the world seems to be contracting, Miami’s tech ecosystem only continues to expand,” Gorordo, said, minutes before Brady joined them on stage.

The 45-year-old former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback announced his retirement from professional football for the second time in February.

When asked on Thursday what comes next for him, Brady spoke about the $375 million, 10-year contract he has with Fox to broadcast NFL games starting in 2024. “I’m going into a new arena where I have to learn a different skill set,” he said.

He seemed excited by the opportunity to jump into the broadcast booth, saying it will allow him to share stories with viewers and entertain and teach them. “I think it’s going to be really fun for me, because I get a chance to have you guys watch football through my eyes,” he said.

He added that, “beyond football I’m definitely interested in tech,” but did not provide any specific areas that’s caught his interest.

During his 23-season football career, Brady started several business ventures such as TB12, a fitness and lifestyle company. In 2020, he started 199 Productions, a media venture. Before entering the NFL in 2000 as a sixth-round draft pick of the Patriots, the San Mateo, California native was an intern at Merrill Lynch in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for two summers.

More recently, he co-founded Autograph, an NFT company, which last year raised money from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, known as a16z, and Kleiner Perkins.

Brady also has seen the dark side of tech life, too, getting caught up in cryptocurrency’s reckoning that also hit Miami hard due to connections to the well-documented collapse late last year of crypto exchange FTX. The once high-flying FTX abruptly failed in November and then filed for bankruptcy. Its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, faces criminal fraud charges.

In 2021, Brady and his then-wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, invested in FTX Trading Limited and endorsed it in a commercial. The two are now divorced.

He and numerous other pro athletes and celebrities face lawsuits in both federal and state courts, including in Florida, for their work with or on behalf of FTX.

But on Thursday, eMerge leaders didn’t ask Brady about FTX, and he didn’t discuss specifics of his business ventures.

This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 2:24 PM.