Imago
NFL, American Football Herren, USA Detroit Lions at Los Angeles Rams Dec 14, 2025 Inglewood, California, USA Fox broadcaster Tom Brady is seen prior to the game between the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Inglewood SoFi Stadium California USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xKirbyxLeex 20251214_rgo_al2_060
Imago
NFL, American Football Herren, USA Detroit Lions at Los Angeles Rams Dec 14, 2025 Inglewood, California, USA Fox broadcaster Tom Brady is seen prior to the game between the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Inglewood SoFi Stadium California USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xKirbyxLeex 20251214_rgo_al2_060
Essentials Inside The Story
- Chris Costa turned Tom Brady's rookie liquidity into an operating retail business.
- Brady’s meticulous daily involvement shocks even his business partners.
- With twelve stores open, CardVault’s national brick-and-mortar footprint is expanding aggressively.
Tom Brady’s dominance didn’t end with football. After a career defined by seven Super Bowl wins and record-setting passing numbers, he turned a longtime passion for sports collectibles into a business venture, acquiring a major stake in CardVault by Tom Brady in 2025. Founded in 2020, the brand has since grown into one of the fastest-expanding trading card and memorabilia retailers, now operating 12 locations nationwide.
Named ‘America’s Best Card Shop,’ CardVault opened a new San Francisco location on February 7 ahead of the Super Bowl, where co-founder Chris Costa discussed the company’s origins and working with Tom Brady in an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
How CardVault by Tom Brady Began
Just like pretty much every football fan around the world, Costa grew up buying packs at the store, hoping to pull his favorite player and trading with his friends. Little did he know back then that his childhood hobby would become his career.
Where Does OSU Roster Still Lack Elite Talent?
Let Tony do the scouting, you just make the pick.
Pick your positions. Get Tony’s top 5:
“I’ve collected since I was a young kid,” Costa explained to EssentiallySports. “I got back in around 2017, and I was looking for specific baseball players. It was always baseball for me, at least when I got back in…When I went from chasing for my own collection, and I started looking at this thing as an investment, it was the Tom Brady market. And that’s what’s so crazy about this whole thing is, when I started really buying, selling, and trading Tom’s rookie [cards], and it was specifically the 2000 Bowman Chrome Refractor, we realized that this was a business…Tom is a big reason this turned into a business for me as a collector.”
Imago
NFL, American Football Herren, USA Washington Commanders at Los Angeles Chargers Oct 5, 2025 Inglewood, California, USA Tom Brady looks on before the game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Washington Commanders at SoFi Stadium. Inglewood SoFi Stadium California USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xJaynexKamin-Onceax 20251005_lbm_aj4_061
Ironically enough, Costa ended up founding CardVault with the very guy whose rookie card he was buying and selling early in his career. Costa grew up a New England Patriots fan, so to work with Brady has been a dream come true.
Inside Tom Brady’s role as CardVault’s Co-Owner
In the exclusive interview with EssentiallySports, Costa was asked what has shocked him the most about working with Brady, and it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it’s the level of detail he puts in every day.
“His level of involvement in our business and how much he cares and how dialed in he is to our day-to-day operation is the biggest shock to all of us,” Costa explained. “It’s not that we didn’t expect it. We knew, and Tom has had a reputation for being 100 percent in on anything he commits to, but we’re talking every day. I grew up in New England as a Patriots fan. I grew up the biggest Tom Brady fan on Earth, and here I am pinching myself that I’m Tom Brady’s business partner.”
Despite being involved in so many things, including owning an NFL team and broadcasting games for FOX every weekend, Brady finds time to be heavily involved with CardVault.
That daily involvement has translated directly into how CardVault operates and scales. Since Brady acquired his 50% ownership stake, the company has aggressively expanded from a handful of regional locations into a national chain, targeting high-traffic destinations near major sports venues and shopping hubs. Store placements in places like Boston’s TD Garden area, American Dream in New Jersey, the Mall of America, and the new San Francisco flagship were part of a growth strategy shaped at the ownership level, with Brady playing a role in where and how the brand expanded.
Beyond real estate and expansion, Brady has influenced how CardVault presents itself to collectors. Under his involvement, the company leaned into premium inventory, on-site grading services, live pack breaks, and immersive in-store experiences designed to feel more like collector hubs than traditional retail shops. The goal, according to company leadership, has been to position CardVault as the gold standard for buying, selling, and trading sports cards, a vision tied closely to Brady’s own history in the hobby and his focus on authenticity and quality.
Brady has also remained physically present in the business, frequently attending grand openings, meeting collectors, participating in store events, and promoting new locations and product drops. Alongside the in-person engagement, he appears in CardVault’s digital content series and live-streaming initiatives, which give fans a behind-the-scenes look at store operations and high-value card breaks, further extending the brand’s reach beyond physical locations.
There are a ton of former players who invest in businesses and put their names on things and never really care about it. But for Brady, he can never do anything unless he gives it 100 percent.
