The Denver Broncos are for sale. And plenty of people want to buy it.
Broncos CEO Joe Ellis declined to disclose any of the candidates on Monday, citing confidentiality requirements. But while Ellie declined to name names, he numbered numbers.
“It’s more than five and less than 20,” Ellis said, via Mike Klis of 9News.com. “And there’s a lot of people that would like to be involved in some part whether they’re . . . the controlling owner [or not]. It’s been a pretty robust process so far . . . and I’ll stick to the timeline I think I said back in January, which is we should have a new owner in place by the start of the regular season. I cannot guarantee that.”
Ellis added that there are a “lot of qualified people who have a significant interest” in buying the franchise and are “passionate about the team.”
Passion doesn’t matter. Cash does. At the end of the day, the highest bidder wins. Regardless of whether they like football, don’t like football, know football, don’t know football.
Two potential names who know football fairly well are John Elway and Peyton Manning. Both have been mentioned as potentially being involved in ownership groups. But not as the controlling owner, given the extreme financial requirements.
“They’ve inquired is what I would tell you,” Ellis said as to Elway and Manning. “And they can speak for themselves about what they are inquiring about and what their interest is. Certainly, I think either one would be well-accepted by a group if a group or a potential owner would want to include them in the group. We’ll see where that shakes out.”
Again, all that matters is how much money shakes out of the winning bidder’s pockets. Especially for a team being sold by a trust. The goal will be to get as much money as possible. So if Elway or Manning want to partner up with the winning horse, they’ll need to find the one with the biggest feedbag.