Tom Brady was in a rush to announce his NFL return to Bucs

Explore More

Tom Brady can’t keep a secret very long.

Brady decided to unretire and return to quarterback the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the same day that he broke his own news on Twitter, and he gave his social-media team short notice to craft the message that reverberated through the sports world on March 13.

“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 FoxSports.com. “So, I FaceTimed the guys to let them know I was coming back, and we discussed how best to put it out there.”

In this case, “the guys” refers to executives at Shadow Lion, a company of about 15 employees that has run Brady’s social-media accounts for years, according to the report. Shadow Lion helped craft the 53-word message (now shared more than 200,000 times on Twitter) for Brady’s approval.

How much time were they given for the biggest news of a wild NFL offseason?

“I told them, ’30 minutes?'” Brady said. “So we went back and forth on the language, chose a couple photos and, well … let’s play some football!”

Not everyone learned of the news on Twitter.

Chris Godwin recently told ESPN that he and fellow Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans were given the same 30-minute heads-up by Brady via text.

“Yo…just letting y’all know…I’m coming back and I’m excited for another year,'” the text said, according to Godwin.

Shadow Lion was not in the loop on Brady’s original retirement, which led to an awkward appreciation tweet from the “TB12” brand account that the company also runs. The post was quickly deleted when Brady’s camp began denying the reporting by ESPN. Two days later, Brady retired with Shadow Lion’s help. And 40 days after that, he was back.

One of the big questions at the intersection of sports and social media is just how much control athletes have over their verified accounts. Is it all farmed out to employees?

Brady is very involved, including writing his own statements and approving everything on his personal changes before Shadow Lion actually creates the content and publishes, according to the FoxSports report. He manages his own Instagram stories and the personal side of his life, away from football. 

ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3N7j2xma25fqbyuecGrmJ2xXayutHnIp2SaZaKqwKl506hkmqaepMKvr8Rmn6KrXaOzrXnRnquuqp5iwbB5wa6arGc%3D