DENVER (KDVR) – The Denver Broncos are officially for sale, the Pat Bowlen Trust announced Tuesday.
Joe Ellis, the president of the Denver Broncos, said the trustees hope to have the sale completed by the start of the 2022 NFL season.
“The Broncos are a special franchise that is part of the fabric of this region, and whoever emerges as the new owner will certainly understand what the team means to our great fans and this community,” Ellis said.
The decision comes after a judge with the Denver District Court cleared the sale in January, ending a long legal battle to determine if the right of first refusal that Pat Bowlen gave former Broncos owner Edgar Kaiser in 1984 is still enforceable, even though both men have passed.
Now that the right of first refusal has been terminated, the team could be under new ownership come the start of the 2022 season. Broncos management has said the ownership group will change.
Forbes recently valued the team at $3.75 billion. For comparison, the richest person in Colorado as of 2020, Phillip Anschutz, was worth about $10 billion. This means it would cost about 20% of his total value to become a majority owner of the team. Last year, Nexstar’s KDVR also did an analysis of the Coloradans who could afford to buy the Denver Broncos.
Jeff Bezos was also rumored to be interested in buying the Broncos, but he denied the reports in October. Peyton Manning, too, has also been floated as a member of a potential ownership group.
