Getty Tom Brady wipes sweat during the Buccaneers' opener against the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 9.
A fragrance-themed commercial can’t hide something not smelling right about Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady touting Subway.
Brady’s commercial with the sandwich chain kicked off on Week 1 with the broadcast of the Bucs and Dallas Cowboys. It depicts Brady, dressed to the nines, spraying fragrance and then smelling Subway bread. The company made the disclaimer “and we don’t make fragrances.”
And we don’t make fragrances.
Are you #Bready for some football? @TomBrady #EatFreshRefresh
It flies in the face of Brady’s strong statement about the food industry his book, The TB12 Method according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Brady wrote a mini-essay on it in his 2017 book per Florio.
“The way I see it, food companies are more like chemical companies than anything else,” Brady writes per Florio. “But we keep eating what they sell us and then wondering why the rates of disease and obesity are so high. Our bodies become toxic when we ingest toxic chemicals. … When I think about ‘food,’ I picture an avocado, a banana, a salad, a handful of nuts, or a piece of fish. I don’t picture a box of cereal, a tub of margarine, a box of doughnuts, a bag of potato chips, or anything else manufactured using salt, sugar, fat, additives, stabilizers, and chemicals. Food should look like, smell like, and taste like food. I’m not saying to never eat the foods I just mentioned, as I know they taste good (and are marketed well). But try to limit them and eat more real, organic, local food.”
Florio goes on to point out that Brady also addressed mass-produced vegetables, which Subway offers. Newsweek recently published an article on what Subway vegetables come to the store pre-cut and which ones don’t.
“Consider what the industry does to fruits and vegetables,” Brady wrote per Florio. “Green apples, bananas, and tomatoes ripened by ethylene gas are available all year round, but are those real?”
Brady doesn’t eat Subway vegetable staples such as tomatoes and peppers according to Vox.com regarding his TB12 diet.
Brady on Subway
Brady addressed his Subway partnership in an Instagram post with a video of the commercial.
“As this new commercial will tell you, I don’t eat much bread, but at the end of the day I recognize greatness when I see it,” Brady wrote. “When they told me about all the new menu items they were launching, I couldn’t resist getting in on the fun. Bready…. It’s forbidden.”
Vox.com’s Julia Belluz noted that Brady steers clear of bread containing gluten.
It’s also widely speculated that Brady has never eaten at Subway, which Sports Business Journal writer Terry Lefton alluded to. However, the 44-year-old quarterback grew up at a time when Subway had its most rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s according to Business Insider. ESPN’s Seth Wickerham reported that Brady admitted to actor Dax Shepard in 2020 that he ate Subway in college at Michigan.
FWIW: Tom Brady told @daxshepard last year that in college he did, indeed, eat at @SUBWAY. He would eat meatball subs.
Brady, a Buccaneer Foodie?
Brady has taken on bigger contradictions in his food marketing prior to Subway in his time as the Bucs quarterback.
He appeared in a Frito Lay commercial with Bucs tight end Rob Gronkowski and other NFL stars in 2020.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion likewise won’t eat salty snacks and other highly-processed food per Vox.com.
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Tom Brady Statement Doesn’t Smell Right In Subway Ad