One of the stranger aspects of Tom Brady’s premature retirement was the fact that his social media team bought into the ESPN report that he spent three days refuting. Shortly following Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington’s scoop, Brady’s fitness and lifestyle brand, TB12 Sports, tweeted farewell to its founder.
For a few fleeting moments, the tweet appeared to imply confirmation of the story. Then it was taken down.
As it turns out, Team Brady was caught just as off-guard as the rest of us.
Fox Sports’ Charlotte Wilder recently published a deep dive into the secrets behind Brady’s robust — and often irreverent — social media operation. Brady employs a creative agency, Shadow Lion, to craft his viral posts on all platforms. The agency is run by two members of Brady’s inner-circle: his longtime manager Ben Rawitz, and his brother, Jeff Fine.
On Jan. 29, Shadow Lion reacted to the surprising news like everybody else. Wilder writes there “was no media strategy planned because no one at Shadow Lion knew this news was coming and because Brady didn’t confirm that he was retiring after it broke.” Instead, Brady deflected, telling his good pal Jim Gray he was taking his decision “day by day.”
Left in the dark, Fine and Gilad Haas, the managing director of Shadow Lion, began putting together a retrospective video of Brady’s career. The original cut mostly contained highlights from Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins and 10 conference championships. When Brady informed Fine and Haas of his plans, they were ready. But Brady made them redo the video, anyway. It originally contained highlights from Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins and 10 conference championships.
Brady wanted the final version to feature his family.
Rawitz, a Wellesley native who became Brady’s personal assistant in the mid-aughts, convinced him to launch his Facebook page in 2013. Today, Brady boasts more than 19.2 million followers on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
He approves every post that appears on his channels, often writing captions himself.
His faux-retirement, and return, were no different. When Brady decided to come back March 13, he FaceTimed Haas, who was at the TD Garden for Kevin Garnett’s jersey retirement ceremony.
“Once I made the decision, I knew I just wanted to get it out and move on to get ready for the season," Brady told Wilder via email. “So, I FaceTimed the guys to let them know I was coming back, and we discussed how best to put it out there.”
Brady gave his team 30 minutes to prepare the post announcing his about-face. Shortly after 7:00 p.m. EST, the entire world knew.
Then it was onto another season, for Brady and the team that molds his image.
