Culture
Timeline of Tom Brady’s bid to become part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders
Legendary quarterback Tom Brady’s bid to become a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders is expected to be approved at the NFL’s fall owners’ meetings in Atlanta on Tuesday, according to a league source. The league’s financial committee will review Brady’s bid, and a vote is expected to receive the necessary 24 votes out of 32 owners to approve the approximately 10 percent stake Brady and his business partner, Tom Wagner, plan to purchase.
Here’s a timeline of Brady’s path to potentially becoming a minority owner of the Raiders.
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January 18, 2020: Brady attended UFC 246 in Las Vegas and was photographed smiling with Raiders owner Mark Davis and then-Raiders executive Marcel Reece. The Raiders were entering their first season in Las Vegas, while Brady was coming off what would be his final season with the New England Patriots. With Brady set to become an unrestricted free agent that March, rumors were swirling he could sign with the Raiders to replace Derek Carr.
The Raiders considered pursuing Brady, but coach Jon Gruden, who had personnel power, decided against it and stuck with Carr. Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Raiders’ flirtation remained significant as Brady’s relationship with Davis deepened.
In an appearance on CBS Sports Radio last year, former Raiders CEO Amy Trask said that Davis has leaned on sportscaster Jim Gray as a “primary adviser” over the years and that, at some point, Gray “facilitated the relationship” between Davis and Brady.
January 14, 2021: Davis agreed to purchase the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces. He’d been an Aces season ticket holder since 2018 and a fan of the WNBA since play began in 1997.
February 12: 2021: Davis’ purchase of the Aces was formally approved by the WNBA and its owners.
February 1, 2022: Brady announced his retirement from the NFL after 22 seasons at age 44. He won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers following the 2020 season, but they lost in the divisional round of the playoffs the next season.
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March 13, 2022: Fourty days after announcing his retirement, Brady changed his mind and announced he’d return to play for the Bucs in 2022. He signed a restructured one-year extension in April.
May 10, 2022: Fox Sports announced it signed Brady to a 10-year, $375 million contract to become its lead color commentator for NFL games. The plan was for him to start whenever his playing career concluded.
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May 31, 2022: Brady attended an Aces game in Las Vegas. He caught up with Davis and expressed his admiration for what he and the franchise were building. On the court, the team was thriving and en route to its first WNBA title later that season. The Aces were regularly selling out games and drawing some of the best attendance in the league.
“I think he was just really impressed with how far women’s basketball has come,” Davis told The Athletic last year. “And he was also impressed by the excitement and the enthusiasm of the crowd in Las Vegas.”
Shortly after the game, Brady’s representatives reached out to Davis and asked whether he would be willing to sell a minority stake in the Aces.
“He knew that I was in it, and I think he just felt he wanted to be a part of it,” Davis said. “And so, his people contacted me, and we talked about it, and he became a partner.”
Welcome to the Aces Family, @TomBrady! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/4bj3IPQz2K
— Las Vegas Aces (@LVAces) March 24, 2023
Dec. 28, 2022: Coach Josh McDaniels announced the Raiders were benching Carr. Although Carr had signed a three-year extension with the franchise that April, it included a clause that allowed the Raiders to easily get out of the contract after one season. In benching Carr, McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler made it obvious that they planned to move on from the veteran quarterback.
That meant the Raiders needed to find a new starting quarterback. The Raiders viewed Brady as their primary option, according to league sources. As a Patriots assistant coach, McDaniels won six Super Bowls and produced some of the league’s best offenses working alongside Brady in New England. Brady was set to become an unrestricted free agent in March 2023, and there was reason to believe he could look to play elsewhere if he didn’t win another Super Bowl with Tampa Bay.
Jan. 16, 2023: The Bucs were eliminated in the wild-card round of the playoffs in an embarrassing 31-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Feb. 1, 2023: Brady announced his retirement “for good.” This time, he didn’t go back on the decision.
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March 23, 2023: The Aces formally announced that Brady had reached an agreement with Davis to become a minority owner. Although Brady had passed on the opportunity to play for the Raiders, his relationship with Davis made it a good fit.
“I am very excited to be part of the Las Vegas Aces organization,” Brady said in a statement released by the team. “My love for women’s sports began at a young age when I would tag along to all my older sisters’ games. They were by far the best athletes in our house! … I have always been a huge fan of women’s sports, and I admire the work that the Aces’ players, staff and the WNBA continue to do to grow the sport and empower future generations of athletes. To be able to contribute in any way to that mission as a member of the Aces organization is an incredible honor.”
Tom Brady, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and Raiders and Aces owner Mark Davis attend a 2023 WNBA championship banner-raising ceremony before the Aces’ 2024 home opener on May 14. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
May 22, 2023: Davis told ESPN he had come to an agreement with Brady for him to purchase a minority ownership stake in the Raiders.
“We’re excited for Tom to join the Raiders,” Davis told ESPN, “and it’s exciting because he will be just the third player in the history of the National Football League (after George Halas Sr. and Jerry Richardson) to become an owner.”
Oct. 5, 2023: The Washington Post reported that Brady’s bid to become a part-owner of the Raiders had hit a snag. According to the report, there was concern by the other NFL owners about Davis offering Brady a reduced price for a 10 percent stake. When contacted by The Athletic, Davis and Brady’s representation declined to comment.
Aug. 28, 2024: As Brady prepared to make his broadcasting debut with Fox Sports in Week 1, he learned he’d face extensive restrictions due to his bid to acquire an ownership stake in the Raiders.
Although Brady still hadn’t been formally approved as a minority owner, a league source told The Athletic he would not be allowed key access typical for NFL broadcasters in his role as a Fox analyst. He’s not allowed access to other teams’ facilities and practices and can’t attend broadcast production meetings, which usually include meetings with coaches and players ahead of games. He’s also not allowed to publicly criticize officials or other teams and could be fined or suspended if the league feels he breaks that policy. He also must abide by the league’s gambling and anti-tampering policies and is limited to “strictly social communication” with members of other teams.
A network source told The Athletic that Fox Sports had no concerns about the limitations, and Brady agreed to them.
Oct. 5, 2024: According to the Washington Post, Brady and businessman Tom Wagner, the co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management, increased their financial offer to purchase a 10 percent stake in the Raiders from Davis.
Oct. 15, 2024: The NFL’s fall owners’ meetings take place in Atlanta. If the owners vote on Brady’s bid as expected, he would need 24 of the 32 votes to approve his bid. The bid is expected to be approved, according to league sources.
If they don’t vote in Atlanta, the next chance will come at the NFL’s next league meeting on Dec. 10-11 in Irving, Texas.
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The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, Richard Deitsch, Dianna Russini and Vic Tafur contributed to this report.
(Top photo of Mark Davis and Tom Brady: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
new video loaded: The A.I. threat to audiobooks
By Alexandra Alter, Léo Hamelin and Laura Salaberry
May 20, 2026
At 53, and after more than a decade in the industry, things are happening for the romance writer Kennedy Ryan that were not on her bingo card.
The most recent: a first look deal with Universal Studio Group that will allow her to develop various projects, including a Peacock adaptation of her breakout 2022 novel “Before I Let Go,” the first book in her Skyland trilogy, which considers love and friendship among three Black women in a community inspired by contemporary Atlanta.
With a TV series in development, Ryan — who published her debut novel in 2014 and subsequently self-published — joins Tia Williams and Alanna Bennett at a table with few other Black romance writers.
“What I am most excited about is the opportunity to identify other authors’ work, especially marginalized authors, and to shepherd those projects from book to screen,” said Ryan, a former journalist. (Kennedy Ryan is a pen name.) “We are seeing an explosion in romance adaptations right now, and I want to see more Black, brown and queer authors.”
Her latest novel, “Score,” is set to publish on Tuesday. It’s the second volume in her Hollywood Renaissance series, after “Reel,” about an actress with a chronic illness who falls for her director on the set of a biopic set during the Harlem Renaissance. The new book follows a screenwriter and a musician, once romantically involved, working on the same movie.
In a recent interview (edited and condensed for clarity), Ryan shared the highs and lows of commercial success; her commitment to happy endings; and her north star. Spoiler: It isn’t what readers think of her books on TikTok.
Your work has been categorized as Black romance, but how do you see yourself as a writer?
I see myself as a romance writer. I think the season that I’m in right now, I’m most interested in Black romance, and that’s what I’ve been writing for the last few years. It doesn’t mean that I won’t write anything else, because I don’t close those doors. But the timeline we’re in is one where I really want to promote Black love, Black art and Black history.
What intrigued you about the period of history you capture in the Hollywood Renaissance series?
I’ve always been fascinated by the Harlem Renaissance and the years immediately following. It felt like a natural era to explore when I was examining overlooked accomplishments by Black creatives. I loved the art as agitation and resistance seen in the lives of people like James Baldwin or Zora Neale Hurston, but also figures like Josephine Baker, Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, who people may not think of as “revolutionary.” The fact that they were even in those spaces was its own act of rebellion.
What about that period feels resonant now?
The series celebrates Black art and Black history and love at a time when I see all three under attack. Our art is being diminished and our history is being erased before our very eyes. I don’t hold back on the relationship between what I see going on in the world and the books I write.
How does this moment in your career feel?
I didn’t get my first book deal until I was in my 40s, so I think this is the best job I’ve ever had. I’m wanting to make the most of it, not just for myself, but for other people, and I think the temptation is to believe that it will all go away because that’s my default.
Why would it all go away?
Part of it is because we — my family, my husband and I — have had some really hard times, especially early in our marriage when my son was diagnosed with autism, my husband lost his job, and we experienced hard times financially. I’ll never forget that.
When I say it could all go away, I mean things change, the industry changes, what people respond to changes, what people buy and want to consume changes. So I don’t assume that what I am doing is always going to be something that people want.
Why are you so firmly committed to defending the “happy ending” in romance novels?
It is integral to the definition of the genre that it ends happily. Some people will say it’s just predictable every one ends happily. I am fine with that, living in a world that is constantly bombarding us with difficulty, with hurt, with challenge.
I write books that are deeply curious about the human condition. In “Score,” the heroine has bipolar disorder, she’s bisexual, there’s all of this intersectionality. For me, there is no safer genre landscape to unpack these issues and these conditions because I know there is guaranteed joy at the end.
You have a pretty active TikTok account. How do you engage with reviews and commentary on the platform about you or the genre?
First of all, I believe that reader spaces are sacred. Sometimes I see authors get embroiled with readers who have criticized them. I never ever comment on critical reviews. I definitely do see the negative. It’s impossible for me not to, but I just kind of ignore it. I let it roll off.
How does this apply to being a very visible Black author in romance?
I am very cognizant of this space that I’m in right now, which is a blessing, and I don’t take it for granted. I see a lot of discourse online where people are like, “Kennedy’s not the only one,” “Why Kennedy?,” “There should be more Black authors.” And I’m like, Oh my God, I know that. I am constantly looking for ways to amplify other Black authors. I want to hold the door open and pull them along.
How do you define success for yourself at this point?
I have a little bit of a mission statement: I want to write stories that will crater in people’s hearts and create transformational moments. Whether it’s television or publishing, am I sticking true to what I feel like is one of the things I was put on this earth to do? I’m a P.K., or preacher’s kid. We’re always thinking about purpose. And for me, how do I fit into this genre? What is my lane? What is my legacy? Which sounds so obnoxious, you know, but legacy is very important to me.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights the screen adaptations of popular books for middle-grade and young adult readers. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. Scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen versions.
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