For most NFL football players not named Tom Brady, playing pro football is just a small slice of their total lives. It’s important, then, to have a post-football plan.
Former NFL linebacker Blake Martinez has pursued a unique one. And it’s working.
Martinez recently told Meg Sauer of CNBC, via DailySnark.com, that he has made $5 million in seven months. By selling Pokemon cards.
Not Fraggle Stick cars. Pokemon cards.
The 29-year-old made $29 million during his seven-year playing career with the Packers, Giants, and Raiders. He retired in November 2022, after spending a brief amount of time in Las Vegas. He’s already gotten more than 20 percent of that.
“Every single day when I wake up, my shoulder doesn’t hurt and my back doesn’t hurt anymore,” Martinez told Sauer. “When all that hurts are my fingers from opening, like, 1,000 packs of cards per day, I think, ‘I’m going to keep doing this.’”
Martinez started buying an selling Pokemon cards during the pandemic, through his company known as Blake’s Breaks. He sells the cards on the Whatnot platform.
And it’s working very well for Martinez, who has found a way to make significant money without doing any further damage to a body that took a pounding playing one of the most physically-demanding positions in all of sports.