NFL star Tom Brady’s company TB12 Sports took nearly $1 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, federal data has revealed.
Brady’s nutrition and fitness plan company based in Foxboro, Massachusetts was approved for the $960,855 loan on April 15, according to data released by the Small Business Administration.
It’s unclear how TB12 was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and how many jobs it retained with the loan.
TB12 is privately held, and its financials, valuation and number of employees have never been disclosed.
Brady himself has an estimated net worth of $200 million.
Less than a month before TB12 received the loan, Brady signed a two-year contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers reportedly worth $50 million, fully guaranteed.
Along with his wife Gisele Bündchen, the former New England Patriots quarterback’s net worth has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
More than 5 million PPP loans were given out across the country, averaging $101,409, according to the data released this week.
The new data also shows that — both nationally and in Massachusetts — large businesses received a disproportionate amount of the funds, which were primarily designed for smaller firms.
Concerns have been raised about whether the funding is being distributed fairly, as the SBA Office of the Inspector General concluded that the agency did not direct private lenders to prioritize minority- and female-owned businesses when it started implementing the program.
Questions remain about how the program has affected jobs, especially because of the incomplete and sometimes confusing aspects of the data.
Among the loan recipients, 48,922 reported zero as the number of jobs they would retain with the money, and 40,506 applicants appeared to leave that section blank.
As the Washington Post reported, more than half of the money nationally was collected by just 5 percent of the recipients.
Several billions of dollars have gone to ineligible businesses and fraudsters, watchdogs have warned.