Trent Brown has never played for the Dallas Cowboys, but he knows a thing or two about tending cattle.
The Cincinnati Bengals hired the rancher this offseason to protect franchise quarterback Joe Burrow. But when the NFL veteran isn’t focused on passing schemes or slide protections, you can probably find him on his ranch back in Bastrop, east of Austin, Texas. At that three-stable property, he’s building a livestock enterprise, one he expects will generate revenue long after his playing days are over.
“I plan on this being my life after football,” he said in an interview. “Completely hands-on, full cowboy every day.”
The Bengals right tackle recently went viral after a social media video surfaced of the 6-foot-8, 380-pounder riding horseback at a nearby arena in Texas where he often buys his horses. To most of the sports world, it was a funny clip of an oversized man on a steed, but for Brown it was just another day as a ranch owner and operator.
“I grew up around livestock and agriculture,” said Brown, a military brat who rode his first horse as a toddler. “I was always fond of it and knew when I had the opportunity that I would have my own [ranch]. It’s something that I can pass down to my kids, and they can pass down to their kids.”
Brown, who was born in Bastrop but grew up in Albany, Ga., originally bought his ranch in 2021 as a passion project but later realized the earning potential of his operation, which has been renamed The Brown Ranch. The Pro Bowl lineman, who also owns real estate in south Dallas, believes he can become a major player at the intersection of cattle and agriculture in Texas. He already owns more than 90 head of Brangus cattle and nearly two dozen performance horses. His two hired farmhands do most of the horse upkeep and management year-round, especially when Brown is busy with his NFL blocking responsibilities.
Brown has ambitions of owning multiple ranches and is using this one as a proof of concept as he looks to fill out diverse revenue streams, including horse boarding and agri-tourism. In the meantime, he’s focused on growing his herd of bulls as he perfects his desired bloodline and builds out his meat production channel, potentially selling cattle to butchers and others who want high-quality and top marbling grades.
Brown has made more than $65 million in his nine-year career but understands the pitfalls many pro athletes make in relying on their cash to maintain their millionaire lifestyles after they hang up their jersey. He wants his ranching business to become entirely self-sustainable and help him ride into retirement.
As he ponders expansion and creates a profitable business model for his ranch, the Super Bowl champion can’t help but try his hand at competition. Next October his first set of quarter horses are set to go into futurity, a competition which offers staggering prize money to winners. It’s a unique opportunity to showcase his yearlings, one of which is an offspring of all-time great cutting horse Peptoboonsmal, whose foals have reeled in more than $28 million in earnings.
But it’s not all about profits for the seventh-round draft pick. Brown aims to spread awareness about ranching and the lesser-known history of Black cowboys. He says popular accounts depict ranching as something that John Wayne or Clint Eastwood does but says there’s not enough conversation about Black cowboys, who were among the first in the U.S. He recently partnered with Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, which highlights the contributions of Black cowboys and cowgirls.
“I’m also trying to use my platform that I have to introduce kids to other ways of thinking and something they may be interested in,” said Brown, whose grandfather was a Texas rancher. “As a cowboy, you naturally fall into trades and skills that you can use in other avenues of life. Some ranchers are the handiest people in the world. They can find a job on a construction site and stuff like that. … You don’t have to be an athlete.”
Brown wants others, including current NFL players, to consider the financial benefits of farming, which he says is more than cows, horses and baling hay. He also echoes the sentiment that a farm doesn’t have to be a sprawling number of acres and that returns can happen even on small plots of land.
“This is one of those different ventures that can be far more lucrative than just a two-, three-year professional athlete career where you didn’t make life-changing money and potentially still must go work a 9 to 5. This is about introducing people to something that you can have a passion in and not work for somebody else if they don’t want to.”
