It’s safe to say that most NFL players see a dip in their annual income once they eventually retire from the league, but that certainly was not the case for former NFL linebacker Blake Martinez, who retired at the age of 28, when most players are reaching their prime.
Through his six seasons in the NFL, Blake Martinez made more than $28 million in total. But since retiring from the league just seven months ago, he’s well on his way to making even more money doing what started out as a side hustle: selling Pokémon cards.
According to a report from CNBC, Martinez started a card-selling company called “Blake’s Breaks” and since he retired from the league to focus on the company full-time, he has generated more than $5 million on the collectible reselling platform Whatnot.
It’s good money, and as Martinez points out, it also comes without putting stress on his body.
“Every single day when I wake up, my shoulder doesn’t hurt and my back doesn’t hurt anymore,” Martinez told CNBC. “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.’”
It seems that retirement is certainly working out for him.
[CNBC]
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