Season Opener Preview: Raiders, Broncos Franchises Stand Out As Contrast In Owner And Stadium Legacies
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
DENVER — Two NFL franchises. Two very different former team owners and two contrasting stadium scenarios.
The Las Vegas Raiders and Denver Broncos meet here in Denver at Empower Field at Mile High Sunday and you could not find two more different legacies of former owners and stadium scenes.
Former Raiders owner Al Davis, who died in 2011 at age 82, pursued many stadium options before his son, Mark Davis, cut a monster deal with Southern Nevada for a $2 billion stadium project just west of the Strip.
In 2016, the Nevada Legislature approved a $750 million public subsidy to contribute to the construction of the black-veneered stadium across Interstate 15 from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.
The Raiders’ stadium opened in 2020 after there was no public vote on the stadium subsidy. It’s a fixed-dome stadium with 62,500 seats.
Former Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, who died in 2019 at age 75, worked metro Denver’s six-county area to help fund a new stadium to replace old Mile High Stadium with a sales tax that also paid for the Colorado Rockies’ Coors Field.
In 1996, the Colorado Legislature approved a bill that kicked off the process of helping Bowlen build a new $400 million stadium with the public paying 75 percent of the cost and the team kicking in 25 percent.
The Broncos stadium is close to Interstate 25, easily accessible by the Platte River Trail along the city’s urban sports-entertainment corridor that stretches from Empower Field to the Nuggets/Avalanche’s Ball Arena and on to Rockies’ Coors Field in LoDo, Lower Downtown.
While the Raiders moved from Oakland into a new market, Las Vegas, for their new stadium, Bowlen in 1998 had to use a different stadium subsidy strategy to win his stadium’s public financing. He was trying to draw government assistance in Colorado to keep the Broncos in the same market.
At the time 25 years ago, I was The Denver Post city hall reporter covering the Broncos stadium subsidy campaign when Bowlen used this strategy: He said without government aid to help build a new stadium, he may be forced to sell and the new ownership could move the Broncos out of Colorado.
Bowlen himself didn’t threaten to move the team if the Broncos did not garner public dollars to build a new stadium. But he did plant the seed that it could potentially happen via a different owner.
The Broncos’ stadium opened in 2001 after voters in the Denver six-county area approved the sales tax financing deal in November 1998. It’s an open-air stadium and it looks like a horseshoe from above with the open end on the stadium’s south side. Its capacity is 76,125.
In much the same way Davis is revered at Allegiant Stadium with a massive torch, so to is Bowlen at Empower Field with a statue.
And by the way, the Broncos have designated Suite 429 for the Raiders’ executives for Sunday’s game.
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In Las Vegas, the Raiders are set with their new stadium and new home.
Thanks to the new subsidized stadium, the Raiders and Davis have seen the team’s value soar, according to a recent business magazine report, to $6.2 billion, a stunning increase in the franchise’s value.
The Raiders pull in the most ticket revenue in the National Football League. Their stadium improvement projects are not many because the venue is still young, with a recent conversion of club space to suites on the first level as the biggest recent revenue enhancement.
The Broncos? It’s a very different stadium scene.
The Denver team has its eye on a new stadium and the team is in the early stages of planning for the new venue after spending $100 million on current stadium improvements.
It now has the biggest stadium scoreboard in the NFL.
As far as a new Broncos stadium goes, the team sent earlier this year a survey to season ticket holders about their thoughts on a venue location.
Fans have mentioned four potential locations: a rebuild at the current site; the Platte River Valley in downtown; east toward Denver International Airport and in metro Denver’s south area.
The Broncos are valued at $5.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
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The Raiders are run unilaterally by the fan-friendly, schmoozy Davis, who also owns the WNBA Las Vegas Aces. The Raiders are a family business with Davis’ father, Al, synonymous with the Silver and Black.
The Broncos’ owners have a title — Walton-Pennar Family Ownership Group. The group bought the team for $4.65 billion in June 2022, with Walton known as the billionaire heir to the Walmart retail empire.
In October 2022 when the Broncos played the Raiders in Las Vegas, Davis was there to chat with the Broncos’ new owner.
Walton is related to Colorado Avalanche/Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke through marriage. Kroenke is married to Walton’s cousin, Ann. With Walton and Kroenke related, perhaps the Broncos will build a stadium on the east side of the Platte River closer to the arena that houses Kroenke’s NHL Avs and NBA Nuggets?
Who knows? As Broncos team president Damani Leech put it earlier this year at a media conference, the Broncos are in the first quarter of its stadium process.
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The one commonality for the two franchises with three Super Bowl championships each is that both teams are coming off mediocre seasons.
The Raiders won six of 17 games in 2022, while the Broncos won only five.
LVSportsBiz.com contacted the Broncos PR staff about the team’s stadium to discuss it. We were referred to the Broncos corporate communications manager, who informed us a Broncos executive did not have time in his busy schedule to talk with LVSportsBiz.com.
To remember old Mile High Stadium, the Broncos keep a 1/8 scale replica of the former minor league baseball stadium in the Empower Field parking lot where the old venue used to sit. Seats from the old Mile High were installed in the replica.
Fans in those same seats have watched some epic Raiders-Broncos matchups decades ago.
On Sunday, the rivalry is renewed between these very different NFL franchises.
Here's a preview rundown for Sunday:
