Terrell Owens’ reliance on financial advisers and close friends he trusted nearly left him broke.
Owens, also known as T.O., played for five NFL teams during his career, beginning with the San Francisco 49ers in 1996 and later starring for the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. He also played for the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, with his final NFL season coming in 2010 with Cincinnati.
Where’d The Money Go?
A recent article from Front Office Sports looks back at how Owens’ financial troubles left him struggling despite earning nearly $80 million during his NFL career.
“It goes fast,” Owens said at FOS’ single-day experience, Huddles in the Hampton 2026. “One day it was like, what happened to my $80 million?”
As reported by GQ in January 2012, Owens said he did not simply live an extravagant lifestyle.
Instead, he said he was too trusting and allowed financial advisers to handle his affairs while he focused on football.
Owens said his financial advisers, whom he said were informally recommended by agent Drew Rosenhaus, placed him in risky, highly leveraged investments.
Among those investments was real estate.
Owens accumulated several homes and condos that he expected to rent out, but the 2008 housing-market collapse turned them into financial burdens.
His mortgage obligations reportedly approached $750,000 a year.
A South Jersey property he bought for $3.9 million was sold for $1.7 million in late 2010.
An Alabama entertainment complex involving electronic bingo cost him $2 million.
Owens said advisers and a lawyer they recommended directed him toward the investment.
“That’s when we noticed that some of my finances were all over the place, and it wasn’t as much as I thought it was,” he said at the Huddles in the Hampton 2026.
“Even with the amount of money that I was being paid, they were late on payments, they weren’t paying on some things,” Owens added. “Then, all of a sudden, money was just missing.”
He later learned the venture was illegal in Alabama and violated NFL rules prohibiting players from investing in gambling-related ventures.
Owens also said a friend drained more than $270,000 from one of his bank accounts.
He said the bank eventually returned the money, but the incident severely damaged his trust in people, according to Business Insider.
He also faced $44,600 per month in child-support payments for his four children.
Three of the mothers sued him after he reduced his payments when his finances deteriorated.
First thing he did was get a job. When no NFL team wanted him in 2011–12, Owens signed with the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League.
He was still trying to get back into the NFL, but this gave him another playing opportunity, according to the NFL website.
He made smarter investments with his full attention to what he was putting his money into.
Forbes reported that Owens pursued opportunities in technology, apparel, fitness and home décor.
He also became a shareholder in the social-streaming platform Hang W/.
He eventually became a Hall of Famer. Owens was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
In 2020, Owens launched the Eighty-One wine label, and by 2021 he was describing it as the beginning of a broader wine business.