The Broncos being sold has become a real possibility

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For the first time since the Broncos won Super Bowl 50, an offseason began with a flood of positive vibes.

A 4-1 finish to the regular season. Four consecutive home wins after suffering defeats in 12 of their previous 17 games at Empower Field at Mile High. The presence of a young quarterback in Drew Lock that gives the organization tangible hope that their late-season momentum is not just a mirage.

But resting atop a mountain of good feelings are clouds of uncertainty regarding the future of the team’s ownership. Legal entanglements loom, even as Pat Bowlen’s daughter, Brittany Bowlen, prepares to begin her second month as a team vice president. And if she earns the designation to be the next owner but her siblings don’t back her, the team could be sold.

“The way I would answer that is it is an option and 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. “That may not be a requirement, but it’s going to be necessary, I think, moving forward from a trustee viewpoint.

“That’s why a sale remains a possibility, I think, given the circumstances we’re in.”

In recent months, three lawsuits regarding the Pat Bowlen Trust — which has had stewardship of the team since Bowlen stepped away from the organization because of Alzheimer’s disease in 2014 — were combined into one, with the trial scheduled to begin in Arapahoe County District Court next September.

Ellis, who is one-third of the trust along with team legal counsel Rich Slivka and attorney Mary Kelly, noted Monday that he was “not surprised at all” that this ended up in the courts.

One part of the combined lawsuit involves Bowlen’s two children from his first marriage — Beth Bowlen Wallace, the team’s former director of special projects, and Amie Klemmer — charging that changes to the trust in 2009 were invalid, asserting that Bowlen was in the throes of the disease that took his life this past June.

This is a part to which Ellis takes strenuous objection.

“The people that knew Pat, that know Pat or knew him at that time and that were around him a lot and did not have an agenda or a motive, know full well that Pat had his capabilities and was able to make decisions in 2009,” Ellis said. “That would be my answer and I won’t go any further on that.“

In the shadow of all this, Brittany Bowlen assumed her role the team’s vice president of strategic initiatives Dec. 2. If the team stays in the Bowlen family, all signs point to Brittany being the Bowlen who runs the team.

“She has distinguished herself as the one child that we’re looking at to possibly take over her father’s role,” Ellis said.

But that does not necessarily mean she’ll get the chance.

Because there was another point that Ellis wanted to make Monday: Even though Brittany Bowlen is working to establish her bona fides in the organization, there is no guarantee that she takes over the team even if she succeeds.

Currently, Brittany Bowlen is tackling multiple projects — including some related to improving the fan experience. This is a high-priority task in the wake of the team announcing 38,095 no-shows over the final three games of the season, including 19,094 for the Dec. 1 game against the Los Angeles Chargers.

“On the no-shows, I am concerned. People start speaking with their feet,” Ellis said. “It gets my attention. I think it gets everybody’s attention around here, as it should. When someone doesn’t show up, that means the ticket had no value to them. That’s concerning.”

Ellis knows the easiest solution to the no-show spike is to “win,” but he also understands that no-shows are a growing problem around the league, even for playoff-bound teams.

There are also significant long-term issues in play, for both Brittany Bowlen and the Broncos.

In the near future, the Broncos could operate under the status quo. Ellis said that the NFL’s finance committee has signed off his designation as the trustee who represents Broncos ownership in league matters and meetings through 2022.

To Ellis, the league’s blessing of keeping the current structure speaks well of how the organization is functioning without a single owner atop the organizational flowchart.

“We haven’t performed well on the field, but as a corporate citizen and a business, we’re performing well. That’s a testimony to everyone that works here. And the league is aware of that,” Ellis said. “They keep an eye on things, believe me. They’re keeping a close eye on what we’re doing here.”

This also allows for stability at the top through any potential work stoppage that results from the 2021 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement, although Ellis expressed confidence Monday that there would be a new CBA without a work stoppage similar to the one in 2011 that lasted nearly five months of the offseason.

“It’s actually a pressing question from a lot of employees, because a lot of people were here when we went through this [in 2011], and we asked some sacrifices of employees in terms of furloughing or delaying payments or salaries and things like that,” Ellis said. “I’m hopeful we don’t have to do that. We’re planning ahead for that and saving for the rainy day. I honestly don’t think we’ll get to that point. I’ve told everybody in our town-hall meetings [of team employees] that I’m optimistic that smarter heads will prevail and that a deal will get done.”

But trust stewardship is not regarded as a permanent solution, and at some point, the team must either be led by a Bowlen or be placed on the market. If it is sold in the next several years, a $3 billion price tag is not out of the question.

The last NFL team to be sold was the Carolina Panthers. They fetched $2.2 billion in 2018. It’s possible the Panthers could have yielded a higher return, but there were extenuating factors, including the fact that owner David Tepper paid cash and that all parties wanted the Panthers’ founding owner, Jerry Richardson, gone as quickly and quietly as possible in the wake of a scandal that involved reported sexual harassment and racist actions by Richardson.

The Pat Bowlen Trust has the power to put the Broncos on the market if it desires. But with the league approving the continuation of the current ownership structure, it has bought time for Brittany Bowlen to continue growing in her role.

“She’s got a really good future ahead of her, whether she succeeds he father or not,” Ellis said. “She’s very comfortable in her own skin, very confident, very intelligent and hardworking, unassuming and not trying to have the Bowlen name get her anything in particular.”

The Bowlen children do not necessarily need to be unified for Brittany Bowlen to assume the role of managing owner, and in 2015, the NFL changed its bylaws to allow a team’s controlling owner to have as little as five percent of the team. This alteration helped the Steelers remain in the Rooney family and could allow the Broncos to remain owned by one of Bowlen’s children.

But the lingering legal entanglements mean that in Ellis’ eyes, the Bowlens will “have to be unified” behind Brittany Bowlen controlling the organization.

“I believe if Brittany is going to succeed her father, then the rest of the family is going to essentially going to have to sign off on it,” Ellis said.

“It’s not necessarily a requirement, but [with] all the litigation, they’re going to have to be unified on that, and we’ll have to see if that’s the case.

“I know it’s important to my fellow trustees and I think it’s very important to the NFL.”

It’s important to Broncos Country, too. On the field, the team has stopped the bleeding and appears poised for better, less dramatic days. But off of it, the plot continues to thicken regarding team ownership.