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The Gambler

October 2, 2020

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done

In the last couple weeks, the dealing’ has finally been done for both of the residents of the Pepsi Center, with the Colorado Avalanche suffering a Game Seven heartbreaker to Dallas a scant 28 days ago, and the Denver Nuggets finally succumbing to the Lakers last weekend. Both teams now find themselves in an unknowably long offseason, while their respective leagues determine how and when they’ll get back to play for an entire season’s worth of games next year.

The Avalanche find themselves in a solid spot, with more than enough money under the cap to cover off on the free agents and restricted free agents they want to keep. But there’s a bigger bump coming for them the following season if they don’t get any deals done early, and a few areas of need the team may want to shore up further to give themselves a shot at the Stanley Cup next season. As generous as their padding currently looks, they could eat it up quickly if they want to both win now and protect their future.

Across the hall, the Nuggets are quite probably having some decisions to make when it comes to how close to the cap they want to be. With a number of important decisions upcoming, and a couple of max contracts already in house, the margins are thin to retain everyone Denver might like to keep. With the homegrown squad as close to a championship contender as the club has seen in years, the pressure is beginning to build to maximize this window of opportunity. Will the Nuggets push their chips to the center of the table now, in a couple years, or at some to-be-determined date down the road? The club’s beliefs as to their readiness will certainly play a factor in who stays and goes with the money getting tight.

Both clubs look to be on the cusp of something special. Both clubs could use whatever advantage an aggressive budget might afford them. And both clubs have to go ask the same guy how much they might get to spend next year. If they can actually catch him in Denver, it shouldn’t be too hard, as he lives right upstairs. At the moment, the quietest guy on the international sports scene is also arguably the most important factor in Denver sports for the next half-decade. Stan Kroenke, the once-removed, semi-tangential owner of the Avalanche and Nuggets, finds himself with two of a billion business decisions to make.

While the “billion decisions” might sound a little hyperbolic, it might be closer to true than you’d imagine. Kroenke owns franchises in the English Premier League, National Football League, National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, National Lacrosse League, Overwatch League, and Call Of Duty League. Watch out Marble Racing. Your Kroenke-free days are numbered.

And Stan sure isn’t done when it comes to decisions on his plate. In addition to his sports equities, he owns several of the broadcast channels and networks his sports properties are shown on, along with billions in real estate via working properties, including a California winery, and some of the largest working ranches in the world. All in, Kroenke is one of the ten largest landowners on the globe. Suffice it to say that he has a few irons in the fire. As of 2020, Forbes estimated his net worth at 10 billion dollars. Buh-buh-billion. So, what’s the big deal about a couple of mil here and there to bump into a lousy salary cap, right? With all he’s paying attention to, why not just roll the relatively inexpensive dice to see if his teams can catch fire and make some noise?

Not so fast there, sports fan.

Kroenke built the bulk of his fortunes from the ground up, having amassed a fair bit of it before he even came into the Wal-Mart fortune through marriage. He continued to build upon that wealth by investing in properties that were profitable, whether a team or a tract, and invests in each of them as he sees them able to bear fruit. It’s a patient and sometimes infuriating exercise for sports fans who don’t care how much it costs to get that ring, but just want the checkbook open and flowing to get us there now.

Season after season, most all of Kroenke’s sports enterprises stay within spitting distance of their respective caps, as they count on smart people to keep them competitive at the most effective amount they can spend. For the folks attuned to only one or two of those many teams, they can often feel like another number on a spreadsheet to help feed an impossibly big beast. With those noticable habits, a conglomerate like this would never go out of their way to get a team over the hump, right?

Well, that may not actually be the case either. With most all of those many properties over the years, including once or twice each with the Avs and Nuggets, Kroenke ok’ed a larger budget to pursue something big. While that didn’t always pan out into a championship ring, it’s telling to see that each of his franchises remains competitive-to-highly-competitive in their respective league, and often see a nudge when they are on the cusp of something. It’s not that Kroenke doesn’t care to win, he simply wants to do it as wisely as he can. HAs that cost him a championship over the years? Maybe. Has it kept him in the thick of things across the board? To be sure.

So, how does that play out this next season for the pursestrings for the Avalanche and Nuggets? There’s a couple of brilliant discussions DNVR’s Adam Mares has on the topic with Matt Moore and George Karl uniquely about exactly that topic. Bottom line, it’s anybody’s guess, with the revenues of each of those leagues in near-term jeopardy while the world sorts itself out of a global pandemic. The impacts of the gates and merchandise losses must be staggering for a whole that is made up of so many socially-attuned parts. The machinations that must be going into “what’s next” for Kroenke are more than I can imagine. But Stan has always proved pretty shrewd about where he lays his bets down, and why. It’s a longer game with him than you might get from someone like Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, and that doesn’t always make a fanbase happy. But this season showed how risky it can be to dump all your chips into a short-term bet. Right, Steve?

Right?

Steve?

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Steve will get back to us. He’s currently in a glass case of emotion.

So, don’t be so certain these teams aren’t in a good enough spot that Kroenke won’t make a larger bet on their future. It’s not that he’s beholden to those salary cap lines. He may just have a different idea of when he’s ready to gamble.