Drew Brees has found another way to stay busy following his retirement from professional football.
The former quarterback for the National Football League's New Orleans Saints agreed on Wednesday to join the board of Business First Bancshares in Baton Rouge, La. Brees, a 20-year football veteran, has also become a director of the $4.2 billion-asset company’s b1Bank subsidiary.
Business First increased the size of its board to 16 directors to add Brees.
Brees, a 2000 graduate of Purdue University, helped the Saints win its only Super Bowl, in 2009. Outside of football, he is involved in several businesses, including a chain of sports-themed restaurants and the UNTUCKit clothing line. He recently agreed to become a studio analyst for NBC Sports.
Brees is also well known in Louisiana for his involvement with local charities.
Brees “has already made well documented differences in the lives of the communities which we are blessed to have the chance to serve,” Jude Melville, Business First’s president and CEO, said in a press release. “We are honored that he would include community banking in general, and our institution in particular, in his playbook.”
Brees will also help promote b1Bank, Melville said in an interview.
"He will be a normal director like the others, and we’ll utilize him as a brand ambassador from time to time," Melville added. "He’s committed to being an advocate for the communities he believes in.”
Brees was a b1Bank client before joining its board, which “led to the conversation” about joining the board, Melville said.
“I look forward to contributing to [Business First’s] ongoing efforts to support the health of small businesses throughout their expanding footprint,” Brees said in the release.
Business First is the second bank in the past week to announce ties with a legendary athlete.
Women’s First Bank, a proposed de novo in Chicago, said on March 24 that the tennis legend Billie Jean King had
Brees is also the second professional quarterback to join a Louisiana bank’s board in recent years. Jake Delhomme, who played for the Saints and the Carolina Panthers during an 11-year career, became chairman of the MidSouth Bancorp in Lafayette in 2016.
MidSouth was sold to Hancock Whitney in 2019.
Darrell Green, who is a member of the NFL's Hall of Fame, has
Business First has been in an acquisition mode in recent months. In March it
