Tiki Barber's Life Just Gets Sadder Every Day

It's been six years since Tiki Barber retired from football, which means we've spent six years watching him desperately try and fail at 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.

The irony in all of this is that Tiki seemed tailor-made for a career in television when he retired. He was relatively young, articulate, and handsome. He was supposed to be infinitely more appealing to viewers than all of the other former meathead football players that try to make a go of it in media. That all changed when we found out what a moron and a dick he really was. Not even TV is superficial enough for Tiki Barber.