How Tom Brady's NFL wage compares to Birmingham City's best paid player | OneFootball

We looked at how Birmingham City minority owner Tom Brady's NFL wage compares to the club's current top earner.

Birmingham City are preparing for life back in the Championship following their promotion from League One last season.

After spending a reported total of around £24 million last summer, including £15 million on Fulham striker Jay Stansfield, Birmingham won the League One title last season with an impressive total of 111 points, which set a new EFL record.

The Blues may have regained their place in the Championship, but that is far from the extent of their ambitions, with owner Tom Wagner revealing that the club are targeting back-to-back promotions next season, and they are expected to be one of the biggest spenders outside the Premier League this summer.

Birmingham have already made six new signings during what has been a busy start to the summer, with James Beadle, Bright Osayi-Samuel, Tommy Doyle, Kanya Fujimoto, Demarai Gray and Kyogo Furuhashi arriving at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park, and the deal for the latter is believed to be worth up to £10 million.

The Blues will be hoping to continue their progress on the pitch in the upcoming campaign, but with NFL legend Tom Brady involved on the club's board, their return to the second tier is also likely to generate further interest in off-field events.

Tom Brady's involvement at Birmingham after becoming minority owner

Brady won a record-breaking seven Super Bowls during his illustrious NFL career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he is widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time, so it certainly raised a few eyebrows when he became involved with Birmingham.

Just months after the Blues were taken over by Knighthead Capital Management in 2023, it was revealed that Brady had purchased a 3.3% stake in the club, as well as becoming the chairman of a new advisory board.

It is unclear exactly how much day-to-day involvement Brady has in the running of Birmingham, but Wagner has previously claimed that he is "engaged with the club 365 days a year", while manager Chris Davies said that his regular contact with the 47-year-old is "like having a world-class consultant", praising him for his "unrelenting drive and passion for excellence".

Brady has been spotted at a number of Blues games over the past two years, including the 3-1 home win over Wrexham in September and the 2-0 defeat against Peterborough United in the EFL Trophy final at Wembley in April, suggesting that he is committed to the club's exciting project.

Birmingham supporters will get more of a glimpse into Brady's role at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park when the club's new documentary, Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues, is released on Amazon Prime next month, and judging by the trailer that dropped last week, it could make for intriguing viewing.

As Brady prepares for the next chapter of his journey with the Blues, we looked at how the wages he received in the NFL compare to the salary of the club's current highest-paid player.

Tom Brady's NFL wage compared to Birmingham City's top earner

As you would expect for a player of Brady's stature, he was one of the biggest earners in the NFL, and it is estimated that he was paid more than $530 million (£394.6 million) during a career that spanned 23 seasons, with $333 million of that coming from playing contracts and around $200 million coming from his off-field activities.

Brady announced his retirement from playing in 2023, but in the previous year, he was said to have been the ninth-highest paid athlete in the world after earning a staggering $83.9 million (£72.4 million), which includes $31.9 million from his salary and a further $52 million from various endorsements.

Given that Brady has a personal net worth of £300 million, none of the Birmingham players will possess anywhere near the same level of wealth as the club's minority owner, but as shown by some of their recent transfer activity, the Midlands outfit are not afraid of paying big wages.

According to Capology, goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell, who lost his place as first-choice in October after making a string of costly mistakes following his move from Burnley, is the Blues' highest-paid player, with the 28-year-old said to receive £20,000-a-week and £1,300,000-a-year, although it should be stressed that those figures are an estimate and it's not clear what the 2025/26 wage bill might look like.

Defender Krystian Bielik is another player who fell out of favour over the course of last season, but with a weekly salary of £20,000, he is believed to be Birmingham's second-biggest earner, with Christoph Klarer, Paik Seung-ho and Lyndon Dykes (all £15,000-a-week) next on the list.

With Peacock-Farrell and Bielik unlikely to feature regularly for the Blues in the Championship next season, it remains to be seen whether the club will attempt to offload the pair this summer, but their departures would certainly free up space on the wage bill.