Deadspin: It’s been six years since Tiki Barber retired from football, which means we’ve spent six years watching him desperately try and failat becoming some kind of relevant media personality. Having washed out of the television business, Tiki is on to much sadder things. He recently co-founded Thuzio, a company that allows regular Joes like you and me to pay large sums of money in exchange for the chance to hang out with famous athletes. You can have Ryan Tannehill (!) show up at your fantasy draft for the low cost of $5,000. Ivan Nova will show up at your party for the low price of $4,000. Thuzio is like an escort service for especially lonely sports fans. The most depressing thing of all, though, is the fact that Tiki Barber is the cheapest athlete in Thuzio’s stable. Tiki’s highest appearance fee is $1,000 for a round of golf or party attendance. Larry Holmes costs $6,250 per hour. Shit, even Tim Hardaway, the noted ex-homophobe, fetches a higher price than poor Tiki. Now, it’s possible that Tiki’s fees could be marked down as a way to make him more accessible and thus drum up good publicity for the company. Still: getting trumped by the likes of Ryan Tannehill and Tim Hardaway is sad in any context. And then there’s this: an auction for Tiki’s services as a karaoke partner. So far one bid for $350 has been placed.
Oh how the mighty have fallen! Ex-communicated from your old team, ditch your preggo wife for an intern, fired as an NFL analysis on NBC, ignored by every NFL team in the league after trying to make a comeback, a failed tryout with the NY Jets Flight Crew, turned down as a peanut vendor in MetLife Stadium, and now this. Just whoring himself out to people who have more money than they know what to do with. My question is what in the hell is Ryan Tannehill and Ivan Nova doing wrapped up in this prostitution ring? Does anyone have ANY pride left??
UPDATE: We’ve got a Tiki Barber sighting!