If supermodel Gisele Bündchen hadn’t already divorced Tom Brady, she probably would now, given the prospect of spending time in Birmingham, which has a network of canals but let’s just say it’s neither Venice nor Amsterdam nor Bruges nor Delft… More interesting than pretty, it has its things, the occasional Victorian relic, more Michelin-starred restaurants (five) than any other English city apart from London, and the best balti (a form of curry) in the world. Although, when you think about it, they are a sin for the strict diet followed by the former Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers star.
Brady acknowledges that he has a lot to learn about football (he calls it soccer like his compatriots, the best proof that he knows almost nothing), but he has joined the list of sports and entertainment figures in the United States with interests in British teams, following in the footsteps of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney (Wrexham), JJ Watt (three times best defender of the year in the NFL, owner of shares of the recently promoted Burnley), actor and producer Michael B. Jordan (Bournemouth) , swimmer Michael Phelps (Leeds) and basketball player LeBron James (Liverpool).
The club lives in the shadow of Aston Villa and has only won one minor title in its nearly 150-year history.
It’s a process dubbed the Disneyfication of English football, after Reynolds and McElheeney turned Wrexham’s rise from fifth to fourth tier into a Disney documentary seen by tens of millions of viewers around the world. Americans are fascinated by the promotion and relegation system of British and European soccer, the drama, the emotion, the epic, the ecstasy and the misery that it means, the fight between David and Goliath, the possibility of stories as American, or as of Hollywood, such as the arrival of Luton Town in the Premier… Quite the opposite of the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball, where you don’t go up or down, everyone has their place guaranteed, half they go to the playoffs no matter how badly they do in the season, and the worst that can happen is that the team disappears or packs up and changes cities.
Tom Brady with a group of children on August 12
Mike Egerton
Neither the club (in the Championship, second division, with a single title in its almost 150 years of history) nor Brady himself (seven NFL rings and five times MVP) have announced the amount of their investment, but it will to be the president of the “advisory council” with the mission of “finding business opportunities”, looking for sponsors, taking care of “global marketing” (sale of T-shirts) and “bringing his experience in the field of nutrition, health and welfare”. In other words, from now on few baltis for the players (rather avocado toast) and few fraternity meals with rival boards at the world-famous Indian restaurant Shababs. If anything, at Simpsons or Purnell’s (Michelin star). The former Patriot arrives at the hands of the Knighthead hedge fund, which is controlled by a friend of his and has acquired the majority of Birmingham City’s shares with the promise of renovating its old Saint Andrews stadium and taking it to the Premier, from which it fell in 2011 and has not glimpsed again. Logical taking into account “problems” such as the arrest in Hong Kong of one of its previous owners…
Tom Brady will go shopping at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols department stores, perhaps buy a ring in the historic Jewelery Quarter, stay at the Grand Hotel (where Churchill and Charlie Chaplin have slept), and get to dine with Tom Hanks, whom he spotted in the Aston Villa field. But he has to know that Birmingham is not Miami.
Actors and athletes
The fascination of North Americans for English ‘soccer’
North American businessmen and investment funds, some of them famous athletes and characters from the world of cinema, fully or partially control half of the twenty teams in the Premier League. The actor and producer Michael B. Jordan (nothing to do with the number 23 of the Bulls) is a minority partner of Bournemouth, the same as JJ Watt (ten years with the NFL Texans and two with the Cardinals) of the recently promoted Burnley . Michael Phelps (23 Olympic gold medals) is part of a consortium with interests in Leeds, and LeBron James in the Fenway Sports Group, owner of Liverpool.
2023-08-16 05:00:00
#Brady
