Terrell Owens on Losing His NFL Fortune: ‘Money Was Just Missing’

Terrell Owens earned nearly $80 million during his 15 years in the NFL. But before his playing career was over, he says he discovered that much of the money he thought he had was gone. 

“I trusted those individuals to manage my financials, and that’s where things took a dive,” Owens told Front Office Sports at the third annual Huddle in the Hamptons.

Owens was drafted by the 49ers in 1996 and went on to play for the Eagles, Cowboys, Bills, and Bengals. He earned six Pro Bowl selections and five first-team All-Pro honors during his career, before being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

Early in his career, Owens was represented by David Joseph of Joseph Athletic Management, a small agency that he described as a “mom-and-pop” operation. Joseph handled nearly everything for Owens, including aspects of his finances, he said.

In 2005, Owens left Joseph and hired prominent agent Drew Rosenhaus. This time, he wanted to separate the responsibilities. Owens decided that Rosenhaus would handle his contracts, while financial advisers would oversee his portfolio and investments.

“I told him, like, I need somebody to manage the finance part of my portfolio, because the first agent, he pretty much did everything,” Owens said.

The arrangement allowed him to concentrate almost entirely on football.

“In order to be the Hall of Famer that I am today, that’s what I did,” Owens said. “I really honed in [during] the offseason, working on my craft and trying to be the best football player that I could be.”

But toward the end of his career, Owens said he began seeing signs that something was wrong. “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.

“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.”

Earlier this summer, several clips of former pro athletes discussing their finances went viral. Current and former players like CJ McCollum and Dwight Howard garnered attention by lamenting the fact that their big paychecks ultimately didn’t leave them with as much as they thought. 

“The general public assumption—which is that if you make it to the pros you are set for life—is far from true,” Perigon Wealth Management’s head of sports and entertainment Marc Specht told FOS. 

Owens said he eventually hired forensic accountants to go through his finances. They found another bank account that had been opened using his power of attorney without his knowledge, he said. 

The problems became even more apparent in 2010 when he was playing his final season with the Bengals. At one point after earning nearly $80 million over his career, he said his savings had fallen to nearly $500,000. “It goes fast,” Owens said. “One day it was like, what happened to my $80 million?”

In 2013, Owens sued Rosenhaus, but the suit was later sent to arbitration, and by 2018 he dropped his case. He said he withdrew his suit because the alleged fraud was discovered after the legal deadline to file a claim. Rosenhaus declined to comment.

In the years since his NFL career ended, Owens has built a second act through media appearances, business ventures, and continued involvement in football.

“If I was just a 10-year guy who wasn’t a Hall of Famer,” he said, “honestly, I’d be struggling.”