With new ownership, Pat Bowlen’s daughter Brittany departs Broncos

The Bowlen family ownership of the Broncos is expected to end next month. And with it, Brittany Bowlen’s time with the Broncos concludes, too.

At one point a potential managing partner of the Broncos, Bowlen informed the organization of her plans to step away from the Broncos earlier this summer.

KUSA-Ch. 9’s Mike Klis first reported the news Thursday afternoon.

“I recently made the decision to step down from my position at the Broncos,” Bowlen said in a statement. “During my time, I thoroughly enjoyed working in the team’s front office and feel fortunate to have worked alongside such a talented and supportive group of people.

“I wish the Walton-Penner Family ownership all the best as they embark on the next chapter of this organization’s storied history.”

Throughout most of the Pat Bowlen Trust’s stewardship of the Broncos, Brittany Bowlen was regarded as the member of the family most likely to eventually assume day-to-day management of the team if it remained in the family.

She worked for the team on two separate occasions, including her recent stint which saw her ascend to senior vice president of strategy.

By the end of the 2019 season, Broncos president/CEO Joe Ellis announced that for the team to remain in the Bowlen family, the children of Pat Bowlen would have to accept Brittany as the managing partner.

“We’ve told the beneficiaries that because if Brittany were to succeed and take over for her father, everybody else is going to have to sign off on that, most likely,” Ellis said on Dec. 30, 2019. “That may not be a requirement, but it’s going to be necessary, I think, moving forward from a trustee viewpoint.”

Meanwhile, the contentious back-and-forth within the family persisted.

In 2018, Beth Bowlen Wallace, who worked for the team in the mid-2010s, asserted that she wanted managing-partner duties. That led the trust to issue a statement that Bowlen Wallace was “not capable of qualified at this time” to run the team. A lawsuit followed.

With the Bowlen family unwilling to get behind Brittany Bowlen as the managing partner, the trust announced Feb. 1 that the team was for sale.

Now, the heirs of Pat Bowlen are expected to cash in. Bowlen’s seven children from his marriages to Sally Parker and Annabel Bowlen were each set to inherit 11 percent of the Broncos if the team stayed in the family. With the Walton-Penner group paying $4.65 billion for the team, they will cash in.

But make no mistake: Brittany Bowlen wanted to run the team and continue her father’s legacy.

“I do have ambitions and goals to one day becoming the controlling owner of the Denver Broncos,” she said in 2018.

Now, she will step away as the Broncos go into a new era.

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