Former Packers linebacker Blake Martinez left football to sell Pokémon cards; one marketplace just banned him from selling
Former Green Bay Packers linebacker Blake Martinez has been flagged for roughing the customer in Pokémon card deals.
Martinez, who played for the Packers from 2016 through 2019 and last played for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022, left football to sell Pokémon cards and started the brand Blake’s Breaks.
Blake’s Breaks was prohibited from selling goods to clients by Whatnot, an online social marketplace that facilitates people selling goods to one another, on Friday.
In multiple social media posts, Whatnot stated:
“We really appreciate the community’s commitment to reporting trust & safety issues. Our priority is ensuring a fair and honest experience for customers and upholding our community guidelines. After a comprehensive investigation into Blakesbreaks’ operations, we have decided to permanently remove the seller from our platform, including the individual employees involved in misconduct.”
In another tweet, Whatnot said it has “refunded all buyers impacted by the infractions.” The platform also provided a link for other users to reach out to the company if they felt they had been part of a bad deal with Martinez.
The Blake’s Breaks website, which was active as of a few weeks ago, can no longer be reached.
In July, The Athletic reported Martinez made more than $11 million from selling Pokémon cards since retiring from the NFL. Known as “ripping packs” or “box breaks,” Martinez streamed live videos of himself or his staff opening decks of cards to see what was within. Often, the video showed a rare or unique card that could be worth hundreds of dollars.
Blake’s Breaks is reported to have sold more than 233,000 items on Whatnot.
But Whatnot customers and users on Reddit alleged they weren’t receiving the cards they purchased.
One video that got a lot of attention online appeared to show one of Martinez’s employees switching a pack of cards before opening.
In a livestream video on Whatnot, which is no longer available but was posted to Reddit, Martinez said he talked to officials at Whatnot and “gave them everything. Every explanation, all that stuff.”
Martinez referenced the video that appeared to show packs being switched and said he “understands the optics of what that post looked like. Believe me, I know how it appears.
Martinez apologized and went on to say in the video that he “never wanted to make this feel like a scam.”
“I’m definitely going to take this as a learning experience, especially as a first-year business, and I’m going to make improvements,” Martinez said in the video as he became emotional. I apologize to everyone who was present; you all have the right to feel as you do because I am aware of the overall optics.