Broncos Owner Pat Bowlen Lobbied Intensely For Subsidized Broncos Stadium and Talked Bicycling With Me To End Interviews In Denver

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

A little more than 20 years ago I was covering Denver City Hall for The Denver Post and reporting a public subsidy stadium initiative by the local NFL owner by the name of Pat Bowlen who was constantly ticked off at me.

Bowlen wanted a metro Denver six-county sales tax that financed the construction of Coors Field in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood to continue on the books so that the public would pay $265 million for a new $320 million Broncos stadium on the site of the old Mile High Stadium.

Lots of memories of Broncos owner Bowlen (“Mr. B”) and Denver came flooding back this morning when I heard the news that Bowlen had died at age 75 from Alzheimer’s disease. He was the Broncos owner for 35 years and a 2019 Pro Football Hall of Fame selection, winning three of seven Super Bowl appearances. Here’s an old Denver Post story from the 1990s and Bowlen’s stadium efforts.

 

As the city hall reporter, it was my job to pepper Bowlen with questions that focused on why public money was necessary for a new Broncos stadium when there were other public needs that required public funding, too. It was a classic stadium subsidy debate and I was required as a newspaper writer to report on all angles — even ones that Bowlen did not like.

He had a habit of verbally snapping at me when I posed my questions to him. I never took it personally. I was doing my job. And he was doing his job — swatting away questions that he didn’t appreciate because he was a businessman and lawyer who loved his Broncos so much that he thought the stadium deserved to be publicly subsidized because the Broncos were religion in Denver and the Rocky Mountains region.

After one such testy exchange, Bowlen had his stadium lobbyist, Porter Wharton, call me and apologize for the tone of his comments.

I took the apology seriously and made an effort to get to know the man behind the owner who wanted a subsidized NFL stadium for the Broncos.

We chatted one day after I heard he was a triathlete and enjoyed bicycling.

We clicked on that subject.

I recall talking bicycling with Bowlen one day when he said he was pedaling less and less because he was growing tired of motorists driving their cars so close to him while he bicycled on his training rides.

“I know how you feel,” I recall telling the Broncos owner, the son of a Canadian oilman.

In 1998, I moved on to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. to work for the Sun-Sentinel newspaper, but did not escape the long arm of the Broncos and Bowlen. The Broncos beat the Falcons, 34-19, in South Florida while I was there to win Super Bowl XXXIII on Jan. 31, 1999.

I wrote a profile of Bowlen for the Sun-Sentinel, quoting former Broncos players who said Bowlen was often shy and misunderstood. An excerpt:

 

Some things don’t change. I’m still reporting on an NFL stadium being built, in part, with public dollars. And I’m still bicycling. The Raiders are building a domed stadium for $1.34 billion ($1.8 billion for the entire stadium project including land costs and professional/design costs). And the public in Southern Nevada is raising more than $1 billion over 30 years so that the Raiders can receive a $750 million subsidy for the stadium.

Bowlen was a very different personality than Raiders owner Mark Davis, who can usually be seen watching Las Vegas Aces home games from his courtside seat at Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The Raiders and Broncos have a rich rivalry and I’m sorry Bowlen will not be here to see the new Raiders stadium in Las Vegas. I would have said hi to him and asked him if he wanted to ride bicycles in Red Rock Canyon.

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