He’s the whole 9 yards.
Long Island’s Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado is the Batman behind the scenes of the NFL — a power broker getting things done for “thousands” of athletes who trust the insurance guru to do what money can’t with his undisputed influence.
“I don’t even work at it — it’s just something simple. It’s a phone call,” the 60-year-old New Hyde Park native told The Post during his busy season of a chaotic NFL free agency.
Since 30, he been the go-to for ensuring various policies for individual players, like the Super Bowl XLII-winning Giants defensive line, managing contracts for entire teams, and even taking care of NFL insiders like Adam Schefter business-wise.
That’s only part of how Salgado became one of the league’s most influential individuals without an official capacity inside the NFL.
Salgado utilizes his vast network as a fixer for anyone who needs anything — whether it’s an introduction to business opportunities or hand-delivering post-practice pizza Fridays to the Giants — by turning on a larger-than-life charm that won over Pete Hegseth and had Salgado brush shoulders with President Trump.
“There’s more to it that I can’t get into,” he said with a laugh of the presidential encounter.
Salgado’s consistency and humility has him on speed dial in the sports world for requests both big and small. Titans head coach Robert Saleh called him during an interview with The Post Friday for some fashion advice.
“I always say, ‘I’m not trying to to get wealthy off you,’” said Salgado, who also has big NHL name clients like Rangers Mika Zibanejad, new Los Angeles King Artemi Panarin, and two-time Stanley Cup champion Sergei Bobrovsky of the Panthers.
“What you see is what you get with me.”
What people see is a 6-foot-4 gentle giant with custom suit jackets that have “Big Daddy” stitched on the labels and a familiar face who’s put in sweat equity at stadiums and arenas since the 1990s.
He was quickly trusted and liked by inner circles to the point that people mistook him for Mario Lemieux’s bodyguard.
“I would go to Monday Night Football games, Tuesday hockey games, Wednesday hockey games, Thursday hockey games,” he said.
“Fridays, I’d go to a college game, Saturday, I’d be at a college game. Sunday, I’m at an NFL game. Then we start all over,” said Salgado, who has attended 26 Super Bowls and 10 Stanley Cup finals.
Slice of life guy
Salgado’s winningest drive came while working alongside the Giants during the 2011-12 season, when he routinely ran pizza from Umberto’s of New Hyde Park to New Jersey for Friday practice — at the request of Eli Manning’s immovable offensive line.
“I was doing probably 80 miles an hour coming off the New Jersey Turnpike. I get pulled over, and I’m driving a Mercedes at the time,” Salgado recalled.
“The police officer goes, ‘Where are you in a rush to?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m a delivery guy’…I popped the trunk and showed him 30 pizzas and said it was for the O-line, and he let me go.”
Salgado’s pizza parlor trick became such an important ritual to the G-Men that he had over a dozen Umberto’s pies flown to Indianapolis for the team’s Super Bowl XLVI rematch victory over the New England Patriots.
He’s also crossed paths with Tom Brady’s father, Thomas Sr., an insurance hotshot in California.
“The joke he always said to me was ‘Just remember one thing, Big Daddy: I’m the real Tom Brady.”
And yes, Salgado is known “95% as Big Daddy and maybe 5% Rich” professionally.
Rookie year
Before breaking into the business, Salgado played offensive line for Rutgers Cup-winning New Hyde Park High School and later suited up for the University of Maryland, where he earned his nickname in the 80s.
He worked odd jobs after graduating.
“I did a lot of stuff. I bounced the clubs, I bartended, I even did telemarketing for a minute,” he said.
“At the end of college, actually, I was selling replacement windows, and I was going door to door and trying to make sales…there was nothing that was too big or too little for me to do.”
Salgado, whose brother Jim coaches the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, eventually went corporate and got into the sports crowd thanks to some close friends from college ball — and the rest was history.
He just started the sports segment on Newsmax and now uses his influence off the field by proudly representing the Tunnel To Towers Foundation.
Salgado hosts its annual Big Daddy Celebrity Golf Classic at Oheka Castle on Long Island this June 29.
The former bruiser also recently orchestrated a deal between the organization and Long Island-based Arizona Iced Tea for a one-of-a-kind collaboration chocolate egg cream soda can.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman recognized Salgado in 2023 by officially crowning March 7 “Big Daddy Day” in the 516 — and Michael Strahan came out to celebrate.
Through it all, he maintains he’s just another guy from the island.
“I am not a celebrity,” Salgado said. “I am an insurance person.”