Will Gisele Bündchen be affected by the Deflategate scandal involving her husband, New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady?
Deflategate is a controversy in the National Football League (NFL) involving the Patriots' alleged use of underinflated footballs in the American Football Conference (AFC) Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts last January. The issue resulted to Brady being banned from four games and his team slapped with a $1 million fine, Fox News Latino reported.
In addition, Yahoo! Sports wrote that the Patriots will also lose next year's first-round draft pick and a fourth-round pick in 2017.
This issue led some to believe that Brady's relationship to his famous wife, Brazilian supermodel Bündchen, will also be influenced by Deflategate. However, Fox News Latino insisted that the scandal will not directly affect Bündchen's name. The 34-year-old model recently retired from the fashion runway last April after 20 years.
Kevin Adler, president and founder of Chicago-based Engage Marketing, predicted that Brady will "lose about $1.8 million in salary alone from multi-game suspension and additional hits could from sponsorships as a result," the news outlet reported. The football star currently endorses shoemaker UGG and apparel company Under Armour, earning around $7 million through sponsorship deals in 2014 in addition to his $31 million salary.
When asked if the controversy will also extend to Bündchen, Adler replied, "The short answer is no. It affects his image as a corporate image. I don't think it will trickle down to them as a couple or to her," Fox News Latino quoted.
Adler added that Bündchen will be free from the scandal's shadow unless she was directly involved.
Bündchen, who was named as the highest-earning supermodel for 8 years now, earned around $47 million in between June 2013 and June 2014, the news outlet added. She has endorsement contracts with esteemed brands such as Pantene, H&M, Colcci, Chanel, Oral-B, and Carolina Herrera. Bündchen also designs jelly sandals for shoe company Grendene and has a lingerie line called Hope.
As for Brady, the football star announced that he and his camp are planning to appeal to the decision. Brady's agent, Don Yee, said that "the discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis," Yahoo! Sports quoted.
"The NFL has a well-documented history of making poor disciplinary decisions that often are overturned when truly independent and neutral judges or arbitrators preside, and a former federal judge has found the commissioner has abused his discretion in the past, so this outcome does not surprise me," Yee said, as reported by Yahoo! Sports.
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