Denver’s sports billionaires announced Friday that the people who fixed the Broncos have now purchased a 40% stake in the Rockies, giving Colorado fans a fresh opportunity to experience the state’s favorite civic ritual: mistaking new rich people for a plan.
The Denver Post reports that Greg and Carrie Walton Penner, who lead the Broncos ownership group, are buying a 40% share of the Rockies and becoming the club’s largest minority partner. MLB has approved the deal, the investment is worth about $672 million based on the Rockies’ reported $1.68 billion valuation, and the money will let the franchise retire all outstanding debt and add capital. Which is great news if your dream for the Rockies was always “same owners, less debt.”
For reasons that would be obvious to anyone who has watched the Rockies operate like a mountain-themed tax shelter with fireworks, fans immediately treated the news as a possible rescue mission. The team has seven straight losing seasons, has dropped 100 or more games in each of the last three years, and last season lost 119, tying for the third-most losses in a season since 1901. Attendance is collapsing, too. This week, Coors Field posted its lowest non-pandemic home crowd ever, which is what happens when even casual Denver sports fans start treating rooftop beers as an optional add-on instead of the main product.
Naturally, the Monforts will remain in charge.
Dick Monfort stays chairman and CEO. Charlie Monfort stays in his role. Walker Monfort remains club president handling day-to-day operations. The Penners will have no day-to-day involvement running the team. So after months of negotiation and hundreds of millions of dollars changing hands, the actual baseball part of the organization will continue being supervised by the same family that turned one of the best ballpark businesses in America into a long-running hostage situation with pinstripes.
“We are thrilled to add them to the Rockies’ ownership group as we best position this franchise for long-term sustained success,” Dick Monfort said, which is exactly the kind of sentence a man says when selling 40% of the house but insisting he still knows best where the mold is.
The Penners, fresh off proving that competent ownership can noticeably alter the vibe of a major franchise, said all the right things about passion, the region, the fans, and long-term partnership. Which they had to, because the alternative statement was, “We bought a huge chunk of this thing but unfortunately the people who built the mess are still holding the steering wheel.”
Fans described the news as relief, which makes sense. At this point Rockies supporters are reacting to a minority investment the way flood victims react to spotting one helicopter. Not because anyone’s safe yet, but because at least something from outside the disaster zone has finally arrived.
And that is the joke sitting in plain sight: the Rockies have become such a monument to baseball malpractice that Colorado now considers it hopeful when better owners buy in without gaining control. The bar is no longer “win.” The bar is “maybe somebody in the room has seen a functioning franchise before.”
So yes, the Rockies got a major cash infusion from people associated with a winning operation. And yes, the Monforts are still running the Rockies.
Denver has officially purchased optimism on layaway.
Source: The Denver Post
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