The Broncos and Colorado are lucky to have team owners like the Penners

For the Denver Broncos, it could have gone another way when the team was sold in 2022.

They could have been like the Carolina Panthers, the last NFL team sold before the purchase of the Broncos. On paper, it seems as if the Panthers had hit the ownership lottery with David Tepper, finding a buyer with an 11-figure net worth who had been a part of the ownership group of one of the league’s most well-run and celebrated franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But Tepper, whose fortune expanded as a hedge-fund manager, has had seven coaches in seven seasons. His Panthers change directions as often as they change socks. After one shutout loss on the road, he threw a drink from his ownership suite at Jacksonville Jaguars fans. His legacy is defined not by on-field success, but by a series of missteps that includes an abandoned construction site in South Carolina where the team’s facility was supposed to rise.

Carolina’s new ownership became a dumpster fire.

Or ask fans of Washington’s NFL team. In 1999, their team landed in the hands of Daniel Snyder, who spent the next 24 years effectively writing a how-to manual before mercifully selling the team to a group that was among the finalists to purchase the Broncos from the Pat Bowlen Trust.

Both Carolina and Washington owners with financial heft.

But that isn’t the recipe for successful ownership.

Oh, sure, a bottomless reservoir of wealth can facilitate plenty that could be lacking for the Broncos under Pat Bowlen, who poured every possible resource within his grasp into on-field success, but didn’t possess the massive largesse that some other owners had. Bowlen’s commitment to the league and the NFL were total, and the three Lombardi trophies and his bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame stand as testament to his accomplishments.

That sort of muscle is what the Broncos got with the Walton-Penner group, with Carrie Walton Penner and Greg Penner as its two most out-front members, with an everyday presence around the club.

Absentee owners, they are not; they are regulars around the team offices. Owners without ties to Colorado, they are not; their family has had a presence in the state for decades.

And their commitment goes beyond football moves like jettisoning Nathaniel Hackett after one disastrous season with three more full years left on his deal, or putting in new grass at Empower Field at Mile High as the season progressed, or signing off on a new facility to open in 2026, or taking to heart the suggestions made by players in annual NFLPA surveys to remedy areas in which the Broncos fell short.

Broncos ownership has proven very responsive to issues raised in the annual @NFLPA survey of players, and this was a big one: adding a room for families of players and coaches — with a nursing suite — on-site at the stadium. pic.twitter.com/6hFzfzgo5V

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) August 18, 2024

It extends to a nine-figure project to upgrade their home stadium for fans with accouterments that include a massive scoreboard beyond the south grandstands, even though it may be in its final decade of service. It includes supporting the launching of high-school girls flag-football programs to expand the sport.

And Tuesday, it included an eight-figure commitment to provide football helmets for every high-school player in Colorado.

No NFL team has made a commitment to the sport at a grassroots level in its backyard quite like this one. And given that the NFL tends to be a copycat league, one doubts that the Broncos will be the last club to do such a thing.

But the Broncos and the Penners stepped up first. They asked, “Why not?”

A successful team worthy of support isn’t one that simply wins — it gives back to the community that supports it. The Broncos have a long history of such acts, including the Boys and Girls Club that it continues to support and has for two decades.

But in much the same way as the Penners have taken the Pat Bowlen playbook and expanded it within the realms of the organization, they’re doing the same thing in the community, as well.

New ownership can be a big swing that often ends in a strikeout.

With the Walton-Penner group, the Broncos got a grand slam that has plenty of productive swings ahead in the years to come.

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