In 2011, Cam Newton hit the football scene running as the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft that year.
As previously shared by AFROTECH, the former Carolina Panthers quarterback signed a four-year $22 million contract during his rookie season with the team. What’s more, he had a signing bonus of more than $14 million. Newton previously described the period as providing “the most money that I’ve ever seen.”
“My rookie deal, it was capped. Right? And it was $22 million, all guaranteed,” Newton shared during a Boardroom episode. “And Drake had a song out, ’25 sittin’ on $25 mil’. And I was like, ‘I’m 20-years-old, sitting on $22 mil, you feel me?”
He added, “It wasn’t the signing bonus that gave me that rush. It was that every Tuesday when you looked at that account and when you seen that plus or that green number that’s coming in. I was looking at $732,000… a game.”
Making millions of dollars as a pro athlete was music to Newton’s ears. However, during an interview on the “Assets Over Liabilities” podcast, he recalled recognizing that what football players earned ultimately had a cap.
“Football’s contracts was always gonna be what it was, but when you talk about everything outside of football — or even investing sort of to speak — these are the things that I was really trying to find out,” Newton shared on the podcast. “Like, is this a good deal versus is this a bad deal?”
He continued, “And that led me to understanding like, ‘Yo, I got a business mind. How can I start hiring people to take my vision and execute it?’ And I wanted to put language in place that they are protected as well as my business is protected.”
Along with tapping into his business side, Newton moved into an ownership mindset after thinking about not only how much money NFL team owners were making but also how much other leagues were bringing in. In the interview, Newton recounted becoming a minority investor of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 2016.
“Full transparency, I put as much as I possibly could in there,” he revealed. “They capped me at a quarter mil’…I tried to invest more, and then, a couple of years ago, I get an email and it’s like, ‘UFC has just been bought out. We’re gonna cash you out for it.’”
Newton says that the investment made him over $1 million.
Although he was cut by the Patriots in 2021, he has yet to officially retire and is open to being a backup player, per Sports Illustrated. In the meantime, he leads four companies including his production company, Iconic Saga Productions. Newton’s career transition is showing to still be fruitful.
“I was just talking to one of my business partners in logistics and I was like, ‘Bro, I honestly could live off of $20,000 a month…When you think about seven children, providing for two different households — I have two baby mothers — those are my responsibilities,” Newton said on “Assets Over Liabilities.”
He added, “I’m lucky to have a pulling cycle that I can pull from and live comfortably without fellowship.”
