With the average length of an NFL career being only around 3 years, making money and having a livelihood/profession after hanging the shoulder pads and cleats has been something the league and financial managers everywhere have been trying to instill in players as soon as they make it to the league.
Blake Martinez has taken the fast track to that, and has gotten out of the league before any of the long term health affects of playing a lengthy career in the NFL has taken a toll.
Making headlines after retiring the the league at the age of only 28 to start a Pokémon card trading company, Martinez is now on track to surpass his career earnings from playing football at the highest level in just a few years – and those earnings aren’t too shabby.
According to CNBC, Martinez, who made $29M playing linebacker during time playing for the Packers, Giants and Raiders, launched Blake’s Breaks, a company that sells Pokémon cards on the platform Whatnot. Martinez was a fan of Pokémon as a kid and used his love and knowledge to launch the company as a side venture during the COVID-19 pandemic to buy and sell cards.
“Every single day when I wake up, my shoulder doesn’t hurt and my back doesn’t hurt anymore,” Martinez told CNBC Make It. “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.’”
