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Tom Brady Lands Endorsement Deal With Subway, Which He Wouldn’t Eat in a Million Years

In Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: the GOAT’s very un-TB12 endorsement, the latest twist in the MLB home run race and more.

Dan Gartland

Footlong BMT, hold the nightshades

Although Tom Brady’s dietary philosophy could generally be described as “eat fresh,” anyone familiar with his incredibly restrictive TB12 diet knows he wouldn’t be caught dead in a Subway. And yet, according to Terry Lefton of Sports Business Journal, Brady has signed on to be the newest pitchman for the sandwich chain.

Brady has already shot a Subway ad, which is expected to debut in about a month, Lefton reports, but it won’t feature him holding a sandwich.

Bringing the notoriously health-conscious Brady on board makes sense for Subway as it tries to rebuild its image as a healthier alternative to other fast food. The chain is dealing with a couple of unsavory controversies over the content of its food. A New York Times analysis earlier this month found that Subway’s tuna contains “no amplifiable tuna DNA” and Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled last year that its loaves contain too much sugar to be legally considered bread.

Brady obviously isn’t going into Subway and ordering a footlong maybe-not-tuna on toasted not-legally-bread. Lefton even cited a source as claiming that Brady “has never been inside a Subway.”

It would be one thing for Brady to appear in an ad for a fast food joint he’s never even been to, but Brady’s actual history with Subway makes this situation even funnier. Brady used to love Subway, but now he can’t even stomach the thought of it.

Brady appeared on actor Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert in September to promote his TB12 Method and talked about how, in college, he would go to Subway and “eat like 18 inches of sandwich, of meatball.”

“And at the time, if I went healthy, I was going only one slice of cheese all the way across instead of two slices,” he said.

Later in the episode, Brady walked through his dietary evolution and how he came to embrace his current diet.

“Over time, what I’ve noticed is that my taste buds change,” Brady said. “I went from, I loved Subway and Burger King and all those types of things, to now, it’s like, the thought of that is like no way! No way!”

Somehow I doubt that the tagline of Brady’s commercial will be “Subway: No way!”

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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