Meet Jessica Pegula, the Olympian Whose Parents Own the Buffalo Bills

Pegula was born in Buffalo on February 24, 1994. According to the Palm Beach Post, she lived in Pennsylvania and South Carolina before moving to Boca Raton, Florida, in 2007.

There, she trained with Dave Rineberg — the former hitting coach of Serena and Venus Williams — while attending high school online before heading to the University of Pittsburgh.

Rineberg told the Palm Beach Post in 2010 that the Williams sisters “had the same explosive power” as Pegula, and that’s what “really excited” him about her.

Forbes reported that Terry Pegula founded oil and gas company East Resources in 1983. He sold most of the company’s assets in 2010 to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion, according to the publication.

In 2011, Terry Pegula bought the NHL team Buffalo Sabres for $189 million. And in 2014, he outbid Donald Trump to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion, according to Forbes.

According to an essay written by Jessica Pegula for the Buffalo Bills website in 2023, her mother, Kim Pegula, was an active member of both organizations, serving as president and co-owner of both teams — making her the first woman to hold such titles — as well as a member of the NFL’s Workplace Diversity Committee and the NHL’s Executive Inclusion Council. But Kim Pegula suffered a cardiac arrest in June 2022 and is still recovering, and she will not return to her duties, The Athletic reported in May.

In August 2023, NBC Sports reported that Terry had dissolved Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the company that owned both the Bills and Sabres, and was now chairman of both organizations.

After Pegula’s 2023 Wimbledon quarter-final loss to Markéta Vondroušová, the Times of London reported that she “needs a drive that a family’s billions of dollars can’t buy,” asking questions such as “Is it possible to crave victory if defeat doesn’t mean much in terms of wealth?” and saying she “has a Plan B, whether she likes it or not.”

Pegula addressed the controversy over her family’s wealth in a Season 2 episode of Netflix’s “Break Point,” which documented the loss and referenced the media coverage that followed.

“The journalists who write about me have no idea what I mean. I can’t buy my way into the semi-finals. I just thought, ‘What kind of clickbait is this?'” she said.

She also defended her education in the episode.

“Some people think it’s easy for me because my dad is so rich, but that didn’t happen until I was 17 or 18,” she said. “They gave me a great childhood and instilled a great work ethic in me. They definitely got me to this point.”

In a November 2023 interview with Forbes, Pegula discussed her family’s wealth and its impact on her career as a professional athlete, saying that one will not become a successful athlete unless they “work hard, have talent, and are really determined to make it happen.”

On her father’s side, she has two older half-siblings, Michael and Laura, as well as two full siblings, Kelly and Matthew.

According to Buffalo Business First, she and Kelly previously owned the Healthy Scratch restaurant and cafe before closing the locations in 2022.

Pegula told Forbes that she was inspired to play by her older half-sister Laura, who played college football at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Palm Beach Post reported that Pegula began taking tennis lessons at age 7 and her family moved to Boca Raton, Florida, in 2007 to help her pursue her dreams.

In 2010, Pegula told the Palm Beach Post: “I really appreciate everything they do for me. They gave up a lot of things. We moved here just to give me a chance, because they believe in me.”

“My mother always jokes, ‘Do you know how much money you owe me for these tournaments? If you ever win a Grand Slam, pay me back,'” she added.

Unlike Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz, who burst onto the scene as teenagers, Pegula didn’t get her big break until her mid-20s.

She reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2021 Australian Open and has since appeared in the quarterfinals of every Grand Slam tournament.

However, she is still fighting for a Grand Slam singles title.

Pegula told Forbes that they “learned a lot from each other playing doubles” and “had a lot of fun.”

She also described Gauff as “definitely Gen Z” and said they poke fun at each other over their generational differences, like Pegula not understanding TikTok trends.

The duo will compete together at the Paris Olympics, Gauff’s Olympic debut and Pegula’s second time at the Games, with hopes of becoming the first American women’s doubles team to win gold since Serena and Venus Williams won in 2012.

Pegula competed at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but lost in the first round of the singles tournament and in the quarterfinals of the women’s doubles tournament with partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

In December 2023, Forbes reported that Pegula was the seventh highest-paid female athlete of the year, earning $6 million on the field and $6.5 million off the field.

Its sponsors include major brands, such as Adidas, Yonex, Ready Nutrition, IBM, De Bethune watches, Dyson Zone headphones and Gorjana jewelry.

She has spoken openly about the pay gap between male and female tennis players, telling the outlet: “We always talk about how it’s equal in the Grand Slams, but that’s four tournaments a year – it’s not equal in a lot of other tournaments.”

“I think we need to do a better job of getting the word out about our sport,” she added. “It’s an international sport, there are so many different stories and we touch so many people. But are we really telling those stories to the fans in the best way possible?”

Pegula helped found the organization in 2022, a decision she says was inspired by her mother, who was adopted from an orphanage in South Korea and raised in upstate New York.

In a message to the Buffalo Bills shared in May 2023, Pegula wrote: “I’m not sure she ever cared or even saw the barriers that stood in her way of entering the world of sports, a field dominated by men without a ton of Asian American representation. She broke those barriers without even knowing it.”

“Once she realized what she had accomplished, she became a voice for representation in the sport,” Pegula added. “We have the same goal with AAPITA. The AAPI tennis community is large but underrepresented. We hope to empower leaders, increase visibility and create programs that encourage youth participation.”

Forbes reported that Pegula founded the company in 2017 while recovering from hip surgery with the help of a “business connection in Buffalo.”

According to Ready 24’s website, the company creates “easy-to-use products with clean ingredients,” including a vitamin C cleanser, lavender mist and moisturizers.

Forbes reported that Pegula was “essentially a one-person operation,” involved in every step of the process, from choosing consistencies and scents to managing the company’s Shopify and social media accounts, helping with website design and even writing labels.

Now that her tennis career has progressed, she’s been forced to take a step back and focus on hiring help.

“It’s hard to balance all the responsibilities I had before, when it was just showing up to practice,” Pegula said. “I’m a perfectionist and I want everything to go well.”

Pegula, Gauff, Danielle Collins, Madison Keys and Emma Navarro are all among the top 15 female tennis players in the world.

Following the U.S. Tennis Association’s tweet recognizing the feat on July 17, Pegula tweeted“Let’s go girls.”