Subscribe
Follow Us
When former Green Bay Packers linebacker Blake Martinez quietly retired in the middle of the 2022 NFL season, his exit fell relatively under the radar.
But maybe people should have taken a closer look. After all, the timing and nature of his retirement was odd in many respects. Martinez was only 28 years old, far from washed up. He had already come back from his ACL injury during the 2021 season, so his health was better. He also had just signed to the Las Vegas Raiders' practice squad and made the active roster only a month and a half prior to retiring. Young, healthy, and just coming off an 11-tackle game — there was no normal indication that Martinez would leave the NFL, especially in the middle of the season.
However, Martinez was drawn away from the game by a different lucrative venture: selling Pokémon cards. At the time of his retirement, Blake Martinez had sold a card for over $670,000. He has reportedly made over $11.5 million in his Pokémon card business since then.
He had also started a business in the Pokémon space prior to the start of the 2022 season, which has become very profitable.
“Last July, with training camp just weeks away, he started his own company, Blake’s Breaks, and it took off immediately. Martinez has since hired nearly 20 full-time staffers, and collectively, they host 16 hours of live streams per day, establishing themselves as one of the biggest Pokémon channels on Whatnot. Martinez hosts two or three live streams a week himself,” Zak Keefer of The Athletic wrote.
Blake Martinez may have the most original and unusual reason for retiring from the NFL thus far, but he seems to be succeeding in his new career path.
