About Jessica Pegra’s billionaire parents Terry and Kim Pegra

Jessica Pegra has received support from her parents throughout her tennis career.

The professional tennis player competing at the 2025 US Open has close ties with both his parents Terry and Kim Pegra. Jessica is known for having held the 2024 US semifinals in the tennis world, but her parents are known in the sports world for co-owning the Buffalo bill.

Kim and Terry began encouraging Jessica to play tennis when she was seven years old. She then became one of the best female tennis players in the world. She was born in Buffalo, New York, but her parents moved their family to Wexford, Pennsylvania, and later concentrated on Jessica’s tennis in South Carolina and Florida.

Kim and Terry own several sports teams, but they have previously expressed how to prioritize Jessica’s track and field athletics above all else.

“We always say she is our first sports team and our favorite,” Kim told WKBW-TV in August 2019.

Terry, who has two children since her first marriage, met in a restaurant in 1991 and got married two years later. For most of their three-year relationship, they have worked together and are the owners of the current Buffalo Bills NFL team and the Buffalo Sabres NHL team.

Here’s what you need to know about Jessica Pegra’s parents, Terry and Kim Pegra.

Kim was born in Korea

According to the Democrats and the Chronicle, Kim was raised in Fairport, New York, after being adopted by Canadian-born parents, Ralph and Marilyn Kerr, at the age of five.

The newspaper reported that Kim was left near the police station and spent time at the orphanage. Her dad and mom received a call about her on Christmas Eve 1974, and on the day of the Great Ve, Kim met her parents and two siblings at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

She does not remember her childhood, but she cannot deny the impact that movement had on her life. “They were clearly the biggest influence of my life,” Kim said, referring to her parents in a 2016 interview published on nfl.com. “Think about the fate of life… It was me who lived this dream.”

Jessica shares how she continues to learn about her legacy. After she won the 2023 Hana Bank Korea Open in Seoul, the tennis player posted a series of photos with her trophy and shared a heartfelt message about what the achievements mean for her.

“This is something special,” she wrote to X:

Jessica continued, “My mother visited her orphanage here when I held this event four years ago. It was the first time she felt open about learning about her past.”

Terry and Kim met in a restaurant in 1991

When Kim crossed the path with Terry in 1991, she recently graduated from Horton College with a degree in communications and wanted to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.

According to her interview with NFL.com, Kim, 21 at the time, was planning a trip to Alaska to work in a fishing camp.

While filling out the paperwork, Kim began talking to Terry, who was eating at the restaurant. At the time he was a divorced father of two children, 39 years old. The entrepreneur gave her his business card and later provided her with East Resources, his oil and gas exploration and production company.

“The rest is history,” she told nfl.com. Terry and Kim got married in 1993.

Terry is a businessman who makes his own work.

Terry was born in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State, where he majored in oil and natural gas engineering, graduating in 1973 following his alma mater profile.

After graduating from university, he first worked at Getty Oil in Texas, and eventually in 1975 he took an engineering job at Fermont Oil. The new position has been moved to Olean, New York.

Eight years later, he founded East Resources Inc. after borrowing $7,500 from family and friends. By 2010, Terry had sold most of his assets to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion per Forbes.

They share three kids together

Throughout the marriage, Terry and Kim welcomed three children together, Jessica, Kelly and Matthew.

In addition to her tennis career, Jessica has worked with her husband Taylor Gahagen on several ventures. She launched Skincare Brand Ready 24 in 2018, where he was Vice President and also founded Lending Paw, a charity that trains dogs to become rescue dog animals.

While pursuing business in beauty and pet spaces, Jessica worked with her sister Kelly to open a few health-focused cafes called Healthy Scratch in 2016, but the last two locations closed in 2022.

Meanwhile, Matthew appears to be the most private of Terry and Kim’s shared children.

Terry also has two children, Laura and Michael from her previous marriage. Laura played tennis at the University of Pittsburgh, and Terry “relocated a small percentage” of the Buffalo Bills team in May 2024, according to Athletic. The decision was reportedly made in response to Kim’s continued recovery, when her responsibility as president was suspended.

They co-own Buffalo Bill and Buffalo Sabres

Terry and Kim set their sights on the sport after selling East resource assets. They provided $102 million to build the Pegra Ice Arena in Pennsylvania in 2010, and bought the Buffalo Sabres NHL team the following year.

In 2014, Terry and Kim took over as the second owner of the Buffalo Bills NFL team. “Owning a professional team is about winning, and our main goal of ownership is to win the Super Bowl and bring the championship to the City of Buffalo,” he said at a press conference.

Additionally, the pair owns the National Lacrosse League teams, the Buffalo Bandits and the Rochester Nighthawks. They also manage the Rochester Americans on the hockey team.

Most recently, in August 2023, The Associated Press reported that Terry had dissolved the company Pegula Sports and Entertainment and chose to be president of the bill and Sabres.

“We are grateful for the work and effort that many individuals have put in PSE over the years, but we feel it’s the right time for them to return to separate organizations,” he said in a statement, referring to the bill and the Sabres business. “I feel that now is the right time to break down PSE and allow everyone to focus on their own organization.”

Kim continues to recover from cardiac arrest

In February 2023, Jessica wrote an essay for the player’s tribune. There, a talk was held about mothers who have been in cardiac arrest in June 2022.

According to a professional tennis player, Kim experienced a medical emergency while sleeping, and Terry tried to help her. Jessica’s sister Kelly was staying, but played CPR on her, allowing the paramedics to recover their heartbeat.

Jessica shared that her family “mainly lived in that hospital for two weeks” and her dad didn’t want to leave her mother’s side.

“Today, my mother is still recovering, and the same answer is true whenever someone asks me, but that’s true, she’s improving every day,” she wrote, providing an update on her mother’s condition in February 2023.

In November 2022, months after her mother’s cardiac arrest, Jessica won her first WTA 1,000 titles in Guadalajara, Mexico, giving her victory to her mother.

“I wanted her to know that after six terrible months, I fought for her every day,” she wrote in her essay. “If she could fight through what she was going through, I could have done it too. She cried at my speech and the trophy ceremony.

Since then, Kim has appeared occasionally, including attending practice sessions at Bills Training Camp in June 2022.

They get nervous when they see Jessica playing tennis

According to Jessica, Terry and Kim are avoiding seeing her match in person because of their nerves.

“He’s just saying ‘good work’ to me,” Pegra told me at a press conference at the US Open in September 2022, according to the New York Post. He may enjoy watching at home. ”

In a February 2023 essay for the player’s tribune, Jessica said her mother began watching more of her matches. “She was so nervous that she never saw my match,” she wrote. “Now she’s looking at all of them.”

She also mentioned how her parents influenced her career. “My parents helped me achieve this dream of living,” Jessica wrote. “We didn’t always agree, but they pushed me, and I pushed back.

In a September 2021 interview on the Bills Pod Squad Podcast, Jessica shared details about her relationship with her parents and how they helped her.

“Dad and I are like oil and water on the tennis court. It doesn’t mix well,” she said. “But he definitely pushed me to make me better. To work hard, you can always drive someone out of that type of thing, all that type. He’s very old school.”

Speaking about her mother Kim, Jessica added, “You’ve been off the court and you’ve become healthy. Like eating, recovering (and training).”

They split time between New York and Florida

“One of the big debate points we always have is, ‘Where are you in Florida or New York this week?” Terry said in a January 2022 episode of the Bills Pod Team.

When they’re not rooting for their sports teams, Terry and Kim spend most of their time at their home in Boca Raton, Florida.