Exclusive: Patrick Mahomes on Signing With Hublot and the Watch Collecting Advice He Got From Tom Brady

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes might be chasing the ghost of Tom Brady’s greatness on the football field, but he’s getting pointers on how to replicate the GOAT’s mastery in at least one other area off the gridiron. Since retiring, Brady has put together a legendary watch collection, and Mahomes says he checks in with the former New England Patriot for advice. “He just says, ‘The confidence you wear the watch with makes the watch,’” Mahomes tells me. “He’s a guy who has the confidence, and his watch collection states that.” And like Brady, who spent most of his career signed with the watchmaker IWC, Mahomes is settling down with a Swiss brand too: in his case, Hublot.

When I think of Mahomes, I often think back to his very first Super Bowl appearance against—who else?—Tom Brady in 2021. The veteran came out victorious in Super Bowl LV, but there’s a moment late in the game where Mahomes is tripped up, and while he’s falling to the side, completely parallel with the ground, he slings a ball to the end zone that hits his receiver perfectly in the helmet. It cemented for me that the Chiefs quarterback is a wizard with the ball—full of these improvisational magic moments. This makes Mahomes and Hublot a perfect marriage. The watchmaker makes pieces that are the equivalent of throwing a strike while levitating over the turf. “They have a great tradition of pushing the envelope, and I feel like that’s something that I’ve done in my career,” Mahomes says.

Mahomes admits he’s “just at the tip of the iceberg of my watch collecting habit.” A partnership with Hublot will give him a crash course from one of the most bold and surprising brands in Switzerland. They’ve churned out game-changing pieces that mixed rubber and gold for the first time, for instance, and created collaborative designs with artist Takashi Murakami that feature a spinning multi-colored flower. Last year, Hublot also worked with artist Daniel Arsham on a teardrop-shaped pocket watch. Mahomes has already decided to wear it if the Chiefs make a fourth consecutive run to the Super Bowl this year.

I spoke with Mahomes about his new partnership with Hublot, talking watches with Brady and teammate and GQ cover star Travis Kelce, and what exactly he looks for when building his collection.

GQ: How’s the offseason been?

Mahomes: It’s been good. We’re back at training camp now. I’m home today, but I’ve been in St. Joseph, Missouri, a very small city in Missouri. It’s a small D-II college, so it’s been a lot of fun. We stay in the dorms and bring the mattress pads and everything. I’ve spent nine months of my life in this city now, so almost a year.

Do you have your spots there now?

100%. They actually have this really good brick-oven pizza place. I usually take the offensive line and the receivers each one day and treat ’em for some pizza. Other than that, you’re just looking at your normal Chick-fil-A as your best meal from outside the facility, where they’re cooking for you.

Yeah, I think I know a couple of people who might be able to help me out with Christmas gifts this year.

It was something I always had my eye on. I felt like a watch was a huge piece, the last major part, of your outfit. And growing up in baseball locker rooms [Mahomes’s father was a pro baseball player], I wouldn’t say it was huge whenever my dad was playing, but you would see the guys who had gotten big contracts and they’d wear these nice watches. I remember looking at that and thinking, “Man, I want to get to where I have enough money one day that I can buy some of these watches.” It was super special to me to get a nice watch once I signed my first NFL contract.

Was it a piece you had always planned to get with your first NFL, or did you land on it more naturally?

I would ask the older guys on the team where they were getting their watches, and then I would try to meet people to get [rare] watches like that. Obviously, it’s a very collector-driven market, and you have to know the right people. So, being in the NFL, you meet some guys like [former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback] Alex Smith, Travis Kelce, and guys who have gotten watches before, and you let them lead you in the right direction

For a while, I would buy a watch every year when we started the season. Then I got a little too greedy, and started getting more watches than years I played. So it started as an occasion: you’re in the NFL for another year, you can get another watch. It showed that I had had success. And you don’t know in the NFL if you’re going to play for two, three years, or if you’re going to play for 20. And then I just fell in love with watches in general.

When you were younger and seeing the watches in your dad’s baseball locker rooms, did that inspire you to get a watch as a kid?

I would get those little toy watches when I was a little kid and wear them in the locker room. But I remember getting to high school and going to games, and my mom got me a watch. I can’t remember exactly what brand it was, but I would have that on, and it made me feel like it’s game day. Back then, you’d wear your jersey to school. And so we wear our jersey to school on Fridays, and I’d have my watch on, and it made me feel like I was a pro even before I got there.

What is it that you look for in a watch when you’re collecting now? Are you someone who’s about the aesthetics, or are you more into complications? Where are you on your journey?

Yeah, I think originally I was more just aesthetics—the colors and the design of the watch and the way it looked for the outfit. Now I’ve gotten into more of the history, the tradition, and the things that watches can do.