The current quarterback for the New York Giants, Jameis Winston, just gave fans a pretty good idea of how the highest-paid athletes sometimes go broke. And apparently, it starts by allowing your family members to live as if they are rock stars, too.
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Winston recently revealed that one of the biggest regrets of his life is the fact that he let his family members spend upwards of $400,000 per month. “It got to a point where I enabled the people around me spending like $400,000 a month,” Winston said.
He said that having eight figures in his account so early in his career made it feel like the money would never run out. But once he actually started reviewing his monthly statements, he realized how quickly that number could fall, even though he wasn’t spending much on himself. But according to Cam Newton, things like that “happen to the best of us.”
Having had his own experiences with needy family members, Newton encouraged Winston, as well as any other professional who may have been listening, to begin treating monetary transactions with loved ones as they would with any other individual or institution. Simply put, outline the terms of the agreement in writing before gifting or loaning anything to someone else.
“Knowing what I now know, I would’ve drawn that line and said this. ‘Write a contract. Write a contract and state how much you need.’ And ask this question: ‘Is this a gift or is this a loan?’ …There’s not a sense of money transfer in the world, that we know today, that doesn’t require certain wording to be in place or expectations for it to be given back… Credit, to me, as a family member, is going to be impacted. So we’re going to stop all of that.”
Towards the beginning of the 2025 calendar year, Newton managed to make the headlines after rumors of him being broke began to circulate online. Considering that he signed more than $133-million worth of NFL contracts throughout his time in the league. And that he is currently the proud owner of a real estate company, a cigar bar in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and his own media company, the idea that Newton may have run out of funds was certainly alarming.
On the very next episode of his 4th & 1 podcast, however, he would dismiss those rumors, proclaiming that “To be able to have touched the money that I’ve touched, I’d be a f—ing fool to be broke right now.”
Even though he was likely generous with his wealth in the early days of his career, it doesn’t seem as if Newton ever came close to the same point of financial instability that Winston found himself on the precipice of. But many a top-earning athlete has found themselves at the exact same spot Winston is, and perhaps they should heed the words of Newton before they let the money get to their heads.
