Whether Drake Maye is named NFL MVP or not, he’s about to become a big winner in the eyes of Madison Avenue
Being named Super Bowl MVP would knock Maye’s status to another level, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Steinberg knows what he’s talking about. For decades, he’s represented superstar quarterbacks, with a stable that has included Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Warren Moon, and Ben Roethlisberger.
If that list tilts Mesozoic to some readers, Jake from State Farm will remind you that Steinberg currently co-represents Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs.
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Mahomes has been named NFL MVP twice, the first after his second season of 2018 when he was 23, the same age Maye is now.
“Were [Maye] to win the league MVP, look at the effect that it has had on Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen. Mahomes and Allen immediately became ubiquitous on television because of the number of commercial endorsements that they garnered,” said Steinberg. “The same thing would happen to Drake Maye, and even more.
“Drake Maye’s a fresh new face — handsome, articulate, and largely unexposed to the American public. This would be his coming-out party, because we’re now down to the point in the season where whether or not he wins the MVP, he’s about to have a major elevation of profile.”
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye walks with wife Ann after defeating the Broncos in the AFC Championship game. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
That’s exactly what happened with Mahomes, who won his MVP award right after the Patriots beat his Chiefs in the AFC Championship game, and the year before Mahomes led them to their first Super Bowl championship in 50 years.
Mahomes’s performance and high exposure at a young age, plus a personality that’s as low key and likable as Maye’s, offers a road map for how the celebrity-making machine will treat Maye.
“Patrick has a dynamic style that I think sets him apart to begin with, and that all started to catalyze with what he meant to the Chiefs’ resurgence,” said Vahe Gregorian, a columnist for the Kansas City Star. “He’s got a winsome personality that I think also makes him marketable and easy to like, so all those things kind of rolled together, along with what seems to have been a very carefully-laid foundation to harness his success into branding and marketing.”
Whether Maye is on track to sign a contract extension with the Patriots that rivals the record-setting 10-year deal Mahomes signed after his first Super Bowl win is a story for another day. For now, Maye’s trajectory could resemble Mahomes’s.
“This is an opportunity for him to be a household name for years to come,” said Gregorian. “It sets him in this position to be propelled, if he meets the moment. And I don’t see anything that says he won’t meet the moment.”
Momentum surrounding Maye and his success has been building. A representative at Fanatics, the officially licensed manufacturer and distributor of NFL merchandise, told the Globe that Maye gear ranks No. 2 across all sports. Compared with his rookie season of 2024, sales of Maye gear have spiked close to 500 percent this season.
Leading his team to a 14-3 regular-season record after a 4-13 mark the season before will spark that type of surge.
What also can’t hurt is that Ann Michael Maye, Drake’s wife, already has a considerable following on social media, thanks to her baking and fashion output.
“The American public will become acquainted with Drake Maye, and they’ll like him, and he’s got an interesting back story with his wife’s adventures and dominance on the internet with her baking show — there’s ‘Who is Drake Maye?’ and ‘Who’s his wife?’ ” said Steinberg. “These are questions the American public will be anxious to discover.”
And while Maye’s representatives at CAA did not respond to multiple inquiries to discuss the marketing opportunities ahead for their client and the strategy he wants to deploy, the Maye merchandising machine has been revving up.
He has signed a few endorsement and brand ambassador deals with well-known companies — Nike, Gillette, Lowe’s, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
His commercials with Betterment, a national financial services company that manages more than $65 billion in assets, have been playing during Patriots games for most of the season.
They focus on a calm, cool, and collected Maye sipping a hot beverage, baking cookies, and practicing his miniature-ship-in-bottle craft skills while a frenzied “Drake Maybe” sweats through precarious day-trading bets on the likes of “Snoozle Coin” products. It’s a pitch meant in part to accentuate the good-natured, polite, and seemingly unflappable personality of Maye, who Betterment picked as a brand ambassador before the Patriots drafted him third in 2024.
“We were looking for someone who shared our brand values and had the same ethos of us. We’re a long-term investing platform, and calm, confidence, mastering your craft, and sticking with something and seeing it through in a big-picture way is who we are and what we’re about,” said Kim Rosenblum, chief marketing officer at Betterment. “I think Drake is really authentic. I see him in his interviews after games and he’s very grounded, very down to earth. This isn’t about him, this is about the team.”
Maye’s focus and calm manner, said Rosenblum, inject confidence and energy into what her company is trying to project versus the “Drake Maybe” world of impulse and doubt.
“I’m sure other brands would find the same appeal, where you can lean into somebody who’s almost anti-FOMO, right? That’s what to us is so great about Drake, and I can see that extending to many other brands,” said Rosenblum. “If that’s who you are, and you’re interested in somebody who can authentically represent that, he’s going to be hugely appealing.”
Betterment’s pleasure with its Maye pick rivals how Patriots fans feel about their favorite team’s draft pick.
“From the day we started working with him, he’s done nothing but exceed expectations,” said Rosenblum. “We like Drake. We feel like we’re on the ascent.”
The last time the Patriots and Seahawks met in a Super Bowl, Malcolm Butler made a life-changing interception on a play that should never have been called.
Michael Silverman can be reached at [email protected].
