Tom Brady: Charity Begins At The Audi Dealership

Added on Sep 14, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NFL

One of the great ironies of human existence is that the rich and famous get more cool stuff free than the rest of us. Those who are in the best position to pay for swag get the most free stuff handed to them. I watch ‘Entourage’ so I know how this works–the local Maserati dealership gives Vinny Chase a car to use because they want him to be seen in it. Go to the Sundance Film Festival, get a free ‘gift bag’ full of cool stuff (including SideKick phones that Turtle sells on Ebay). I’m not at the Tom Brady level of celebrity, but as a reasonably successful writer I even have my own gravy train. For example, I haven’t paid for a magazine subscription in years. I’ll admit that being on the comp list of ESPN: The Magazine isn’t quite as good as a Maserati but you take what you can get.

For this reason, I wasn’t overly surprised when it came to light that Tom Brady was driving a ‘loaner’ car at the time of his accident. His $97,000 Audi S8 had New Jersey plates, which the sharp folks over at the Jalopnik auto geek website pegged as coming from Audi’s North American HQ. Initially, I figured it was like Vinny Chase’s Maserati on ‘Entourage’–Audi wants Brady seen in their car, so they give him one (or more appropriately the use of one).

From this point, however, the plot thickens….Tom Brady is the honorary chairman of a charity called ‘Best Buddies’. In theory, its a good outfit–basically, it’s like the ‘Big Brother’ program only with mentally and developmentally challenged people instead of at-risk single parent teens. It was founded by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, who serves as the Chairman. Brady’s car was provided to him by Audi ‘in appreciation’ for his charitable work with ‘Best Buddies’. The chairman also was gifted an Audi S8 as well.

At this point you may be scratching your head–Brady does charity work and in return gets a $100k car? Here’s the official statement from Audi:

“It’s part of our partnership with Best Buddies. We often give cars to opinion leaders in the community.”

Once again, no problem with that. Audi can give cars to whomever they want for whatever reason. Still, there’s something unseemly about Audi giving expensive cars to rich guys who could easily buy their own in exchange for charity work. It sure seems like everyone would be better off if Audi just chipped off $100k and gave it to the charity for use in their programs. That’s the basic idea that a writer for the Boston Herald came up with:

Brady cracked up his $97,000 black Audi S8 sedan last week and it came to light, post-crash, that the car was a gift to the QB/QT from the German automaker in return for his support of Best Buddies . The charity was started by a member of the Kennedy family and it pairs up people with disabilities with a “Buddy” or mentor.

Both 12 and Best Buddies founder Anthony Shriver get free Audis as part of the automakers’ sponsorship of the charity. The car peeps even threw in free six-month leases on Audi Q7 SUVs for Brady’s linemen.

Yes, this is the same Tom Brady who just signed a $72 million contract. And do we really even need to get into the seemliness of Shriver collecting a $97,000 car for running the charity????

And yes, we know Tommy donated one of his MVP Cadillacs to his old high school. But if both Brady and Shriver gave their very expensive toys back to Best Buddies, that would be nearly $200,000 more for people with disabilities.

Even better, if Tom drove the thing around for a couple of weeks, then auctioned it off as Tom Brady’s Slightly Used Audi, well, there’s no telling how much more would go into the organization’s coffers. Just a suggestion from your Best Buddies here at the Track Shack.

According to my accountant, assuming that everyone has reported their freebie cars to the IRS no one is doing anything wrong. Still, the concept that Brady and Shriver get comped $100k cars for charitable work is a difficult thing to wrap your head around.