The most influential ownership and front office changes in Colorado sports

[Music] Get down. [Music] What’s up everyone? Welcome in to the Denver Sports Podcast. Christian Sai is here joined by the one and only Henry Chisum. And today we’re talking decision makers, ownership, front office. Uh we’ve got a couple teams, most of our teams here in Colorado that seem to do things the right way. We’ve got a couple, one specifically, that doesn’t do things the right way or hasn’t done things the right way, but they’re trying to figure out they’re they’re trying to to start to get things going. Uh, in light of the Rockies trying to become a competent baseball organization again, changing their front office, I figured it was a good opportunity for us to kind of look at some of the other organizations here in Colorado that seemingly do things the right way. the ownership group, some of the history of those those organizations, and how the front office is approaching those teams today. So, I figured I’d bring in the the DNVR sports nerd, the guru of all things uh all things Colorado sports. Welcome to the show. Yeah, glad to have you back, Lexi. So, we actually didn’t get invited to any Halloween parties this year. Okay. Which is kind of like Yeah, I know. For the first time since I was like, I don’t know, like nine, maybe even before. Um, but Lexi last night was like, “Well, should we just like watch a scary movie Friday night for Halloween?” I was like, “Well, got to see what’s up with the Nuggets and Abs.” And they both play. So, unfortunately, there will be no Halloween this year. No. No Halloween for you guys because sports are what it’s all about. Sports over everything, as we like to say. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I agree. And that’s to be fair, those are very worth your time. If it was a Rockies situation over the summer, you know, Fourth of July, it’s like, “All right, the Rockies are playing.” I mean, we’re both sickos. We’ll watch the Rockies games, but that’s a that’s a different pull than the Nuggets and the ABS where you’re like, these are two championship teams. I I want to see two of the best players uh of all time and McKinnon for the AS and Jokic for the Nuggets. Like, it makes that decision a little bit easier. Although, the Rockies would be kind of in the theme of Halloween. Be nice and spooky. It is spooky season. See them give up nine runs to the Pirates. Yeah. And then come back and win. Yep. Uh yeah, we got a good show today. I I want to start because now that you you are are with me on this show, um we got to start by talking about the Broncos cuz I think if you look at which ownership group, we’re starting talking about the ownership group first. If you look at each different organization’s ownership group, I think from at least the fans perspective, I think the the the Broncos ownership has made a bigger impact, at least from my perspective, than in the recent years, than we’ve seen from almost any other ownership group for the AS, the Nuggets, although those are the same. Um, and then certainly the Rockies. Uh, so I want to start with the Broncos. And if you look back at the history, the Broncos ownership, it’s not just the Penners that have made a huge impact on on the Broncos. Obviously, we all know about the Bolins. Um, but I I I I want to kind of ask your opinion. Do what do you think or who I should say do you think the most influential owner in Broncos history has been? And what made them the most influential owner for the Broncos? So, it’s it’s still Pat Bolan and for the Penners to be able to to surpass him. There’s no way to do it quickly. You know, they’re doing a lot of great things. A new stadium and the team is trending in the right direction, but I mean, Pat Bolan’s a guy who ran the team for 30 years. Um, and and like actually ran it, not not, you know, Stan Kunky, he owns the Nuggets, but he doesn’t run the Nuggets. He’s not there every day. Pat Bowen was in there every day making all the decisions. Um, and you know that’s that just cannot be surpassed in less than a decade and a half. And even in a decade and a half, you’d have to be winning Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl. And then you could say like, okay, they they they’ve probably done it. Um, Pat Bolan is the greatest owner in the history of Denver sports. Even um just the things that he did taking the Broncos from, you know, a football team to the Denver Broncos that we know now. um took over in 1984, so the second year of the John Elway era, which certainly helps, but it it takes a lot to be able to push a team in that in the right direction. And it’s something that I never really realized. You know, you grow up knowing Pat Bolen or the Broncos. Everybody loves him. He does a great job. He pushes them uh towards winning. Um but you see what the Broncos were um when I first started covering them without an owner. Um, and in that really 10 years where nobody was really controlling the team. Um, and it was ran by the trust, you think it’s fine because you just need a football team. Like you still have the finances you need. You still have whatever. It’s up to the front office to just go do their thing. But the difference when you see an ownership group like the Penners come in is is just massive because it it gives the entire organization direction. You know, it’s it’s it’s easy to say, “We want to be the best organization in football,” but it doesn’t actually mean anything unless you have an ownership group who’s coming in saying, “Okay, we’re going to be out of the stadium soon. Guess what? We’re putting $150 million in investments into it just this year, and we’re going to do it again next year. We’re going to do it again the year after. We’re going to build a brand new state-of-the-art practice facility. It’s going to be the best facility in all of the NFL. We’re going to build a new stadium that’s going to be the best stadium in the world.” Like when you’re actually out there doing all of those things, that’s when it’s a lot easier as a player to say like, “Oh yes, we are the Denver Broncos. We are the best.” And you know, with Pat Bolan, that’s what he did for forever. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it leads into kind of my next question because you talk about the influence that, you know, the Bolan’s had, the Penners obviously have the investments that they’re making. We all know about the investments that the Penners have made, you know, whether it be future investments or even just hell, you know, changing the field, uh, you know, investing in a brand new field just right now. You got one more game, 400 grand. Yeah. Like that that kind of stuff is crazy. And obviously that comes with an absurd amount of money. The Penners are by far the richest uh ownership group in the NFL. Um, but it kind of leads into my next question of do you have to be a great football mind or a great sports mind in general to be a good owner or is there a separation between those two? Cuz obviously it helps, but I from what you’re describing it sounds like there’s a lot more than just sports decisions that are made when it comes to being a good owner, right? That’s a good question. I I think you’d have to look at all the best owners. Yeah. you know, um, you know, and in Denver, you know, we go back to Pat Bolan, and he was somebody who didn’t have all that money, but what he knew was how to build a football team, um, where to invest, um, and was a little bit more involved in kind of the day-to-day, like he wasn’t Jerry Jones or anything, but was out there pushing things. He was somebody who did know how to be an a football owner, not just a person with a bag of money who can invest. Um, the Penners right now are still in that process and they’re doing a really good job. Um, but as as they have said, you know, especially that first year, you’re learning how the game works, how the league works, how all the different rules work. Um, and it isn’t so much hands-on like, hey, we need to go spend this money to go get a star player right now as much as it’s like, hey, we’re going to let you guys do all this stuff. Tell us what you’re going to do. Talk to us about it. We want to improve it. Uh, approve it, but tell us your reasoning, explain it to us, and figure it out. So, they’re they’re still on that path. Um because I it’s it’s a tough thing to learn. I’d be curious though, like do you have to be knowledgeable about the sport and you look through who are the best organizations in football? Um like the Patriots for a long time were with Robert Craft, a guy who doesn’t seem to be again with Jerry Jones out there, it’s tough to put the scale of like how involved an owner is, but he he is involved. He does know his stuff. He just he isn’t meddling too much. Well, I’d look at it the opposite direction, too. Some of the worst owners, let’s just say in sports, okay, since since we’re since this is the Denver Sports Podcast, here we are. Dick Montford, right? He it’s pretty well known that he had his hands in probably way too many baskets, from a player perspective, from a, you know, decision-making perspective, O ownership. While yes, they’re going to be involved in the the big decision-making, you know, they they’re the ones that signed the checks and everything like that, there is a good understanding that that the Monfords had too much of a say in the the baseball side of things and they’re not baseball people. They’re not baseball decision makers. They didn’t go to Harvard studying data and analytics for sports management and all that kind of stuff like right. So, so I think that when you look at the bad side of things, like that’s one of the the faults of bad ownership. So yes, I do think it helps to be obviously a good sports mind when it comes to building a front office, but I think the best uh the best owners are the ones who can have the awareness to hire the good people. And that kind of brings us to our next point, which is the front office that they can hire the people who are going to make the good decisions, who are the the football minds, the the George Payton that are going to go out and build a roster that’s going to be competitive. And so when you look at the front office, yes, the Penners have taken the the the Broncos out of the the woes of the Russell Wilson and the the quarterback issues and all of that kind of stuff that kind of came in the the limbo when the bowling estate was kind of up in the air and you didn’t know who was going to end up being the owner of the team. The the Penners have created stability financially and physically, but at the same time, George Peyton, at least on paper, has been the one who’s created this roster. And for a while, I didn’t even know if George Peyton was still going to have his job with the whole Russell Wilson thing. So, how how impactful has it been that the Penners trusted George Peyton to continue to to guide this ship and and gave him the the length to be able to to kind of figure that out, right? I mean, it’s it’s striking the balance because there are a lot of things that the Penners are not going to be involved. Like, they want to be sitting in the room on draft day, not because they want to have any input at all into what they do. Um but because they just want to see how it all works, see how the operation goes. Um you know, you hear a lot now about the cold sonar with Jim Ers dying, his daughter, who also is very involved on the headset during game days. She says she wants to know um who knows what they’re talking about when it comes to the coaches and the front office and the conversations that are had. Um if there’s a mixup between a signal, whose fault is that? Um and it’s a little bit overbearing and we’ll see how it plays out. But there is a lot too like I want to know how all of this works especially in her first year as an owner. Um with George Payeyton again so much of football is just having the right people in the right places. And what the ownership is there for is providing direction you know picking the standards understanding you know what if what if things don’t go well? What is our bar for success for a general manager? You make you’re you’re not drafting well. How how well do you need to draft to keep your job? How well do you need to do all these sorts of things? How well do you need to communicate with people? Um, and it’s it’s oversight more than anything. And I think a lot of it’s really changing, too. The more that I think about it, the more money really is a factor. You know, Pat Bolan didn’t have a lot of money. He he was struggling to pay the team. Um, they had to do a bunch of kind of financial gymnastics to make it all work. There was the the deferred payments to John Elway late in his career because you just had to find a way to get everybody around. Um, but I almost think that’s almost kind of it can be more effective sometimes because like the Dodgers for example, you know, have unlimited paychecks, unlimited, you know, bank account to to just say we can buy our way out of any problem that we possibly have. And yeah, that serves them well. Yeah. It’s not like it’s not working, but I think uh people can respect the value and the longevity of building from within and being able to kind of, like you said, play some gymnastics to get through it. Obviously, I’d love to be able to just snap my fingers and say, you know, the Broncos have unlimited money, which they kind of do now, but you know, the the Rockies have unlimited money, Nuggets, so on so forth. But the reality is, you know, especially in this market here in Denver, not all of the teams are going to be able to have that blank paycheck or blank check that they can just sign on. And it used to be in the NFL that there were a lot of successful teams that didn’t have a lot of money. Yeah. Um, you know, you think back like at this point, Jerry Jones is one of the Forest owners in the NFL, as crazy as that sounds, but they have to go through the the things that they have to go through. You know, you think back on the Raiders, so successful for so long, but as the finances have just ballooned again, like they make a lot more money now, but a lot of that is in the value of their franchise, you know, because the Raiders are now worth whatever $4 billion when a decade ago they were worth half a billion dollars. And that growth has been astronomic. It means you can take out loans and do those sorts of things. But in terms of cash, there are a lot of tough decisions they’ve had to make. You know, the reason they got rid of Khil Mack back in the day was because they couldn’t they didn’t have the cash to put in escrow to keep him around. So, they had no option to trade him. That was kind of I I can’t remember if that was the end of Al Davis being in charge, beginning of Mark Davis. Um, but you see a lot of those teams kind of struggle financially at this point to the point where you you just need to have enough cash to operate at the level that that you’d like to. Um, the Bengals really struggle with that. They haven’t found a way to and they’re just so cheap. They have the reputation for it. And again, in the ‘9s, you’re able to kind of fight your way through it. in the current NFL where every team owner, every new o owner is billionaires, big-time billionaires, it’s just really hard. And the NFL’s made the changes that they’re allowing private equity firms to invest so that you can get that influx in cash and that’s something they never thought that they would do. Um, but there’s just so many owners that have the different and so the difference, one of the big differences, for example, for people who don’t know is, um, the way NFL contracts are structured is so you have your yearly salary, a million dollars a year for five years. You also have a signing bonus. Um, and that signing bonus, say it’s another 5 million. Um, so that means right away you get to give the guy the $5 million upfront, which he really likes, but salary capwise that $5 million is split evenly over the five years. So it’s 2 million 2 million 2 million 2 million. You can convert all those to signing essentially you can push the salary cap down the road by giving people cash up and so all the cash owners and that’s on top of all the other things that money can do which are a little bit more less abstract I guess and we know how money works. Um but something like that I think right now that in the NFL at least cash is so much more important than it has ever been. Yeah. Oh 100%. And you look at the difference between the NFL and Major League Baseball, for example, that doesn’t have a salary cap. So, Major League Baseball, it really comes down to how much cash does this owner have when when the Mets when Cohen wants to go spend $800 million to sign Juan Sodto, even if he’s going to defer some of that money, you still have to have that cash available. You have to be able to prove to the banks that you have $800 million sitting in a bank account that one day you will end up paying out to this player. So yes, when the Dodgers say, “We’re going to go defer, you know, $500 million of this contract to60, that’s fine. They still have to be able to prove that they have $500 million sitting in a bank account today.” And that’s where it that’s where it becomes a challenge for owners like Manforts who don’t have that kind of cash. Yes, they have equity in their in the organization. The Rockies are worth $2 billion or whatever it is or more maybe. Uh but, you know, they don’t have that cash just sitting in a bank account. So, it’s harder to kind of compete in those ways. you got to play, like you said, uh, financial gymnastics a little bit in those kind of ways. So, we got to pause for our first break. After the break, let’s talk about the Nuggets because the Nuggets have one of the most unique ownership situations and also front office situations. You’ve got pretty much dual GMs and there’s a reason for that and I want to talk about if that can relate to other sports, if that can connect to possibly the Rockies. Um, so let’s let’s talk about that here coming up in just a moment. All right, I want to give a quick shout out to our friends right now over at Shady Rays. Shady Rays is the best sunglasses on the market. I mean, you cannot go wrong with Shady Rays because Shady Rays, uh, not only are they great sunglasses, but Shady Rays is a great company. They will replace your sunglasses for free if you lose them or break them, anything like that. Um, and and the way I look at it with Shady Rays is you live in Colorado, it’s it’s sunny like 700 days out of the se out of the year. You got to have more than just one pair of sunglasses. You got to have a couple. Maybe you have one in your car. Maybe you got one at home for when you go walk the dogs. Maybe you have one in your office. Shady Rays is a perfect just daily wear everyday sunglasses that you can have. You know, I’ve got three pairs literally. One in my car. Uh I’ve got one in the office and I got one in my backpack that just in case, you know, I forget my sunglasses sometimes cuz we know how bright it can be here in Colorado. You got to have sunglasses anywhere you go. You don’t want to get stuck blinded by the sun. Shady Rays is great. They’ve got great styles, great colors. Um so many things that you can say positives about Shady Rays. So, right now, we’ve teamed up with Shady Rays to bring you an exclusive offer. Head to shady.com, use code dnbr for 35% off your polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Also want to give some love to our friends over at Game Time because if you are heading out to hockey games this season, maybe you’re going to watch the ABS like I did last night, go score a touchdown uh in the two-point conversion um against the Devils. Uh that was incredible. Well, you got to use the Game Time app. Game time is the best place to go get your tickets for anything, but especially hockey tickets. And look, you don’t want to miss out. This is another championship season for the ABS. They are Stanley Cup bound, at least playoff-wise. The expectations are as high as they’ve ever been. You’ve got a healthy McKinnon. You’ve got a healthy Mar. You’ve got Olafson, you know, 31-year-old dude who’s just absolutely sniping this year on pace to double his points. And you got to make sure you get out there to Ball Arena and watch some games. Use the Game Time app. They’ve got incredible deals. lowest ticket uh price guarantee. Um I’m actually uh I’m actually using the Game Time app to go to a Nuggets game coming up later this week as well. So the Game Time app is perfect. Take the guesswork out of buying NHL tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app today. Create an account. Use code DMBR for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account. Use code DMBR for $20 off. Tap Ticket Go. Download the Game Time app today. All right. Before we get into the whole Nuggets ownership situation, their front office, uh there’s a lot to to break down into that. Um you can’t talk about the Nuggets without talking about Jokic. And since we’re kind of doing a little overlap between baseball and other sports right now, I I got to I got to have this conversation with you real fast. Um we’ve been watching Show Otani playing in in the postseason in the World Series. Uh by far the greatest baseball player I’ve ever seen. I I think probably that’s ever stepped foot on the face of this earth. I mean, what he’s doing is incredible. And I find myself talking about Show Otani a lot from a baseball perspective in the same way that I talk about Joic. Joic does things that we’ve never seen a basketball player do. The the stat lines that he puts up every night, the the just the the player that he is is otherworldly. So, it kind of brings up the question, who it’s a really hard question, but who is a greater player, Show Otani or Nicole Joic? And that is as loaded of a question as it gets. I understand there’s different contexts with the different sports, but how do you break that down? I mean, it has to be Otani. I He’s the best baseball player ever. I mean, and at this point, it’s tough to even argue that. Yeah. And that’s before you even get into like the whole like, well, it was a lot easier to and imagine what Otani would do in the 1920s if like Babe Ruth did, you know, like if he played in that era, he’d been You don’t even have to do that. like you can just look at what he’s doing now um versus his era and what Babe Ruth did versus his era and you’re just like yeah it’s it’s Otani. But I but I’ll also throw out there Jokic is not only just a great big he’s a great shooter right I mean like he’s doing more than just being the best at his specific position. And I think that’s where I I can put Jokic in that argument. And I also think the the the Denver media or the NBA media, not the Denver media, the NBA media, I I think sometimes a lot of times undervalues the level of greatness of a player Joic is. I may maybe one day we will have the debate of is he the greatest basketball player of all time? Is he in the same conversation as the LeBron James, as the Michael Jordan? um especially playing in Denver where you don’t have the same resources as the Lakers or whatever. But I think if you look at it just by the sheer sense of basketball of what he’s done to the sport of basketball, he’s changed that position and he continues to progress that. I still think there’s an argument to be made. Yes, I do think Show edges him out just a little bit just given how unique of of a difference it is to go from pitching to hitting and and to be great at both of those spots. But Jokic has to still be in that conversation at least. I think you can compare the two at least. You know, it’s fun. When we were out in London, for example, probably like six, seven people I was talking to who from Europe, Rob Nicole Jokic, and to them he’s just the best player ever. Yeah. You know, it’s only in America that we say like, well, Michael Jordan had all the rings and all that stuff. Yeah. Talking to people over there like he is the best that there has ever been which is just like a different perspective than what we have here where you know NBA media and the way people think about sports is just very different in America than it is in a lot of other places. Yeah. the NBA in particular. Um, first of all, NBA basketball fans are very NBA, whereas over there it’s like, okay, cool. He won championships, which is great and like nothing against him, but it’s it’s who the best player is. It’s not just like what did how many rings did he have? Like in here, it’s a lot of that. So, I thought that was interesting. It’s also superstar here. Like how how much of a superstar is Jokic compared to what do people say on Twitter? LeBron James. Yeah. It’s like, well, okay, you can’t compare that. the impressions like yeah it’s it’s just very different. So I thought that was fun. But again like with Otani it just the as as unique and different as Nola has been. Otani is just like the he’s more of a unicorn, right? And and you’ll never see it again, you’ve never seen it before. Um and and he’s he does have like it’s one thing to be great, it’s another to have those accolades. like he now has the best uh NLCS game that anybody has ever had, you know, to pitch how he pitched, to hit how he hits. You know, here’s the thing. So, he he got pulled in the sixth inning, right, in that game. Yeah. With runners on first and second. So, if if a reliever comes in and lets those guys get home, it ruins that whole game, which is a fun like little alternate history, but that’s not the point. The point is he didn’t give up any runs. He has like he’s four for four with the two bombs, three bombs, whatever it was. Yeah. Three home runs. Yeah. Like that. That is the best game anybody has ever played in the postseason and there’s really no conversation about it. It’s it’s as if you took like a professional baseball player and put them on a high school team and like that’s the performance that you got, but this is a professional baseball player playing against other professional baseball players. I I I’ll finish this debate with this and it’s kind of a it it’s it’s almost like it makes me shiver to even say this. If Jokic was on a team like the Lakers with the the notoriety, the fame, the the Hollywood stardom that comes with being on a team like the Lakers, do you think the national narrative changes on whether or not Joic is the greatest player of all time? Oh, totally. I mean I mean it’s just right. It’s just different. Um and they might not come out and say like he is the best ever, but the very least the question the question would be around um you know is he the best? And that’s just again, it’s just why the NBA I I really like watching NBA basketball. I just don’t like hearing people talk about the NBA because it sure does. I mean, it’s when you have the ESPN studios that are literally like in the same complex as the Lakers arena. Like of course this is going to happen. They all walk over there. They’re all friends of the same people, like they’re probably told specifically like, “Hype up the Lakers. It’s good for the league.” And it just it’s it’s why media just really really sucks. Although Peacock has been good. Peacock’s been better. I’m I’m loving NBA on NBC, dude. Listening to Bob Kostas and Mike Tico with the whole laser show of the intro. Oh, dude, it’s bringing me back, man. It’s only We’re only a week in and in two months or two years, you could be saying like, okay, it’s the same. It’s just the hot takes. It’s whatever. But it they’re off to a good start. I like it. Well, speaking of off to a good start, um the Nuggets are are also off to a good start. And uh if you if you kind of dive into their ownership history, they’ve got a unique history. Actually, I think one of the most fascinating histories of any of our Colorado sports teams. Take a quick jog down memory lane. U back in 1967 team was founded by the uh as the Denver Larks by the ABA, American Basketball Association. James Trindle was the owner. He uh sells controlling interest to Bill Riggsby. Rigsby renames the team the Rockets, which I forgot that the Nuggets were at one point named the Rockets. 1972 team changes their name to the Nuggets because because of the Houston Rockets. in the same league. You can’t have two Rockets. Yep. Can’t do that. Can’t be that. Can’t be Rocket Squared. Um 1989, Bertram Lee and Peter Bo become the first African-American owners of a major league sports franchise buying the team for $65 million, which is just insane. I wonder if they ever knew that a player like Nicola Joic would be coming through their their future organization. 300 million so far, right? Oh, good stuff. 1995 Comsat uh or uh Comsat basically buys the the allencompassing subsidiary. They turn into Ascent Entertainment Group. Comat sells the Ascent Entertainment Group to AT&T in 1997, the year that we were born. Correct. I was born. Both of us. Okay. And then in 2000, Kroni Stan Kroni purchases the Nuggets and the ABS and the Pepsi Center all at the same time for a whopping $450 million. Um, Stan eventually had to give over ownership to his wife because of the fact that he bought the Rams. Um, so I I actually didn’t realize that. I know that he owns the Rams. I just didn’t realize that he had to give over ownership to his wife and Walton Kunky um because of that. So, so a a storied history for this this Nuggets organization. But the the real point that I want to look at with this is, you know, Josh Kroni kind of operates as the owner really. The governor is Yeah, the governor. Exactly. The he he he kind of serves the team’s best interests. He’s the day-to-day operator of everything. You think of him as the president of operations almost, but um he I think has been a very progressive owner, let’s just say, in this situation, uh in the sense that he’s taken a very aggressive approach to how he’s built this front office. And I was actually we were doing our Rocky show yesterday talking about their their front office possibilities and stuff. And there was a question that came up of could the Rockies kind of follow the Nuggets uh path and hire two people to kind of organize their front office, hire pretty much a strategy person and a GM person. And I thought it’s interesting because the Nuggets kind of were groundbreaking when they hired Ben Tenzer and uh who was the other guy? John Wallace um to kind of co-lead their team. But when you look at the reasoning behind that, the Nuggets are in a situation that’s very unique because you have the greatest basketball player possibly of all time or at least in the world right now. And so you’re not trying to rebuild an organization. You are literally tasked with how do we build the best possible team around this one player and that’s our only job is to build around Nicole Joic. And they decided they needed two people to do it. And it’s very unique in the world of sports. It is. It’s a strange situation. I mean, the the Kronies have figured out how to how to I guess almost like franchise sports ownership, you know? It’s almost like you whatever. Chipotle starts in Boulder and and then it builds out because like, oh, we’ve got the one store that works, now we can have another, now we can have another. And and that’s kind of what the Chronies have done is found a way to just have all these different franchises and run them in a way that turns a profit like turn create a corporation almost all cityike in some ways. You go DMBR we can branch out there, we can branch out there, we can branch out there. And I think because of that um the way that the Kronkees run is more businesslike and and more focused on um you know they are going to turn a profit. They aren’t going to be too risky. It’s not just like the Rockies who do like the economics business. They create a good stadium that that brings in fans and just make money. Who cares what the product looks like? This is like we have to have a good product here, right? You have to build that product first. But you’ll never see them do things like um like build throw throw the turf out for 400 grand for Yeah, I see what you’re saying. You’ll never see them put those big investments into the arena. Um you’ll never I mean they don’t even have like a practice facility for the ABS. The Nuggets have maybe the NBA’s worst practice facility, just like a gym. Like most most division one basketball programs have like multiple courts to be playing basketball in when they practice, but somehow the Nuggets and I they they do cut a bunch of those corners. Um, and it’s just a different approach. It’s it’s obviously work for them. They win a championship. You wonder though, if if you had just bought in totally, where could you be? Um, but they are they’re they’re riskaverse. You know, it’s not like the Warriors when they realize we have Steph Curry look at this window in front of us. Um, sure, we could it’s risky for us to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into this team or whatever else. But then you look at how that worked out for him with the multiple championships. Um, with the Steph Curry jersey being like iconic, like you have kids just running around. Steph Curry is one of the jerseys that they like you don’t see that for the Nuggets and especially like Steph things all around the world. They wind up building the new arena because all these bets pay off and the Kronies just aren’t willing to take those like gamles, those big investments and say this is going to work and it’s going to level us up. I think it’s it’s bitten them in the ass. I I think when you look back at some of the moves they made to avoid paying the tax um to again the rules changing recently makes it tough to say what you should have done um but they could have made every single move they made last year um no sorry two years ago and no no last year and still also just had KCP. Yeah. when you look at that and say like, okay, what is that team that felt like it was one piece away? A team that took the Thunder to seven games, you know, you could have also just had one more starter return that year and that could have been enough, but the tax, all that sort of stuff on top of it. Um, you know, there’s just a different tier. There’s one more level and it’s a business and not a risk-taking investment where we’re going to gamble and it’s going to pay off big in a few years. And I think with again with the Kronis like they trust the people that are there to to make those decisions and and so much so that if those people aren’t doing that, if those people aren’t seeing things on the same page, like you know, Calvin Booth and Michael Malone last year, they’re willing to make those tough decisions. And you know, we’ve compared this with the Mfords a lot. The Mfords run the Rockies like a mom and pop coffee shop, right? Like like we’re not going to fire people. We we care about our workers. That’s, you know, admirable from a business standpoint, you know, but that doesn’t do any that’s this is professional sports. You can’t do that. You got to you got to operate like the cronies. You got to say, “Hey, our coach and and GM aren’t on the same page. We’re moving on. We got to win. We got the best player in the world on our team right now. We have to win and we can’t allow any of this nonsense to take place in behind the scenes.” So, um, I want to talk a little bit about the aggression and kind of especially how how Kroni manages that front office and and we’ll bleed that into the ABS as well. And I also want to answer Arvvada Luke’s uh uh comment in the chat as well. But we got to take our next break of the show. After the break, we get to some of those topics. Well, I want to give some love to our friends right now over at Toyota. Toyota is the official vehicle of DNVR and uh I absolutely love my brand new Toyota. I bought a although I say it’s brand new, it feels brand new, it’s 2024, 2024 RAV 4. Um it is a an absolute beauty. I I have loved driving it. I drove a 2007 Highlander, 250,000 mi. probably could have kept going after that, but it was time to uh to make a change. And so I I went with our friends at Toyota, and I have had no regrets. I’ve driven Toyotas my entire life, and there’s a reason for that. Um I I started out on a Camry, went to that Highlander, and now I’m with the uh the RAV 4, and uh my wife, Marissa, she actually does not drive a Toyota, and I I think I’ve convinced her that her next her next car is going to be a Toyota cuz I just don’t have problems. her her car has been in the shop two or three times a year for like just random things. And I, you know, I mean, I change my oil. I, you know, rotate my tires, do all the basic stuff. Haven’t had any problems. Knock on wood. But, I mean, Toyota’s just a reliable car. It gets you to where you need to go. It’s great. You feel good driving it. U, they have so many different choices. If you want to go the hybrid route, they’ve got hybrid options, all-wheel drive options like my my uh Rav 4 that I’m driving. Um, they’ve got truck options. I mean, you just can’t go wrong with Toyota. They have so many good things to I have so many good things to say about them. So uh if you’re in the market to buy a new Toyota, uh head to your Front Range Toyota stores at a location near you. Autoation Toyota, Arapjo and Centennial, Corwin Toyota in Boulder, Groove Toyota in Littleton, Mountain States Toyota in Denver, Stevenson’s Toyota East Aurora, and Stevenson’s Toyota West in Lakewood. Toyota is the official vehicle of DNVR. Also want to give some love to our friends over at Dick Sporting Goods because uh it is it’s almost the holidays, which is kind of crazy. I mean, Thanksgiving is in a month. You know, Christmas is going to be right around the corner from that. And uh you want maybe you want to get a head start on some of your your early holiday shopping. Well, Dick Sporting Goods, they have the the best apparel, sports apparel. Whether you’re getting new golf balls, maybe you’re getting the new pair of running shoes, or maybe, you know, you want to go get some DMVr swag. There is some good DMV swag out at Dick Sporting Goods. Have you been out there to uh to see for yourself? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s been there for a while. It’s been there for a while, but you like see like I I’ve like wandered into to a dick sporting goods uh before uh you know probably about a year ago and yeah, it was like it was like seeing your name on a you know a billboard or something. You’re like, “Oh, that’s DMR stuff. That’s pretty sick.” So uh yeah. Yeah, Dick Sporting Goods. You can’t go wrong. They have great stuff whether it’s soccer, football, basketball, golf. Um I actually went and picked up a a a new basketball the other day from there as well. So whether it’s apparel, sports gear, anything, get your gear fast at Dick Sporting Good uh Dick Sporting Goods. They also have uh best price guaranteed as well. So get your gear fast with free curbside pickup at your nearest store or easy shipping from dicks.com because every season starts at Dicks. Uh back on the Denver Sports Podcast, I want to uh answer Luke in the chat in the Toyota chat real quick quick. He says, “How do the moms not try to get a bit get into a bidding war going between the the Penners and the Crunkies if they’re truly about that dough?” Uh, it’s a good question and obviously you get that question a lot. We all as Colorado sports fans would love for the the Montforts to sell the team. The reality is it’s just unlikely to happen because I think there’s a specific reason why the Monertforts despite all the hate that they get, all the dysfunction, even as they are, I wouldn’t say they’re losing money, but they’re not making as much money as they used to. The team sucks. They don’t have a a a TV deal anymore, which was huge. That that cost them a lot of money. I think yes it it feels like something that you know they’d say hey make two bill quick two billion dollars in this cell in the if you sold the team and and sail into the sunset. I think the Monforts want this to be something that they can keep within the family for generations. We already we we already know how insular the organization is hiring from within all of that kind of stuff. But now we know um Walker Mford is kind of taking over the ownership duties. It looks like Dick Mford’s kind of phasing himself out. Walker Mford starting to take over. I think this is a situation where almost like Stan Kunky giving, you know, kind of the reigns of the Nuggets to Josh Kroni. I think Dick Mford saying, “Hey, obviously whatever’s whatever’s happening right now is not good. I’m stepping back. I’m letting Walker take over and I’m going to let these next generations of my family kind of manage the ownership side of things.” And I think that to him is more important than selling the team. They’re still making a ton of money, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like they’re broke by any means, but I think to him, keeping control of the team and letting that keeping the team within the family means more than just taking a big payout, but it’s a good question and I would I’d love for them to do that, but it’s not going to happen. A professional sports team is the best investment there is. you know, like you you it just keeps what the Rockies are worth double what they were worth five, six years ago, double what they were worth before that, double what it’s just because sports keep growing. Um, and that’s why for the same reason like if if you were in your 70s and would you and you owned a $2 billion company, whatever that may be, and you still have plenty of cash flow. Yeah. On your own, right? Would you sell that or would you say no my kids are set up for their their lives and my grandkids lives and the because you just hold on to the asset that keeps appreciating? Like it’s the best investment that you can make. Like it’s sure you could cash it out, but I mean why did why don’t the owners of whatever company say, “Hey, we’re just going to sell our stake and be happy with our money.” That’s bad business. I have bu I have buddies from high school whose parents owned, you know, let’s say a large multi-million dollar successful landscaping company, right? And you know, my buddy who is growing up, going to college, all that kind of stuff, he graduates college and says, “Well, I can either I can go take over my family’s business, you know, that’s going to make me a lot of money, or I can go try to figure it out on my own and just kind of roll the dice, right?” Like, it’s just Yeah, it’s an easy funnel for all of that kind of stuff. Investment’s better than the cash. And I also think I don’t I think from an ego perspective, a pride perspective, why sell the team when it’s when you’re when it’s down, right? You you always want to sell when you’re when you’re high. Um, I think the Monertforts, and God, I hope they’re right, are are betting on the fact that eventually one day they’re going to be good again. The Rockies are going to be a competent baseball organization again. They’re hopefully trending in that direction with a new front office. Um, if they’re ever going to sell a team, it’s going to come after something bigger like that. And to go specifically to the Walton Penners and the Cronies, they have to be interested for that to work. Like right now, Carrie Penner, Greg Penner, they’re in the Broncos building every day. Like that is their full-time job is fixing the Broncos. I don’t know that they are interested at all in just saying like, “Oh, and also we have the Rockies and so we’re going to be splitting our attention and going over that.” Like they have their project. They have their one thing going. You got to feel like the Crunkies though with the the real estate of Korsfield would be interesting because again that’s that’s how they operate. I mean that’s a cash cow over there at KSfield because the Walton Penners all they care about is winning. The Cronis again they’re like snarfs or illegal pets where you say like hey we’ve we’ve got this one and we can expand. we can get this one and this one and we can grow them all systematically. We can implement the same systems across all of our businesses and keep keep all them going. Like it it’s it’s different obviously than the way the momfords operate which like you said it’s just like mom and pop. Here’s our little store. For them it’s we have our have branches out with Arsenal. It’s a major corporation. Exactly. Yeah. No, totally 100%. And then with the Walton Penners it’s just hey this is we have $63 billion. How do we want to spend the last 40 years of our life? Winning Super Bowls is the answer. Absolutely. And maybe eventually they might be interested in a World Series, but I don’t blame him, man. You got to you got to do your thing first, right? Especially because it’s also the basically the best investment you can make is professional sports, the NFL in particular. Yeah. Yeah. And and it’s just you just go back to this whole thing. You wouldn’t Yes, you’d be making money. Yes. the the Moners would make a boatload of money, but in 10 years, if the Rockies are even competent again and, you know, have meaningful baseball in the month of September, you’re going to make a lot more than you would, you know, if you sold the team right now when the team is coming off 119 losses. And I can’t even imagine how little their TV deal made money-wise this year. I mean, outside of you, me, and Spencer, who else is watching, who else is watching Rocky’s games this year, man? $50 million a year TV deal. And and that’s the part where at this point you can’t blame them for not spending. Like for forever forever they were 12th top occasionally top 10 like I think they were like eighth in baseball and spending when they were like 2018 going to the playoffs. But when your entire payroll is whatever 165 million bucks in that time frame, you lose your $50 million TV deal and maybe you’re getting 300 grand off of subscribers online. Like, yeah, there’s going to be cuts to payroll. They brought some of that on themselves by sucking. It’s also just the way the business has gone is those TV deals are drying up for everybody, even the teams that are good. Yeah. But then that’s the one where you say like, yeah, there’s no way to avoid massive cuts. But I don’t know how you bounce back. And that’s and that’s where I, you know, I get it. Everyone says sell the team. I understand. I I wish that that was a reality or a possibility. But the reality is it’s just not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. No, it’s just bad business. It’s it is bad business. So if you want to be a baseball fan in Colorado, as hard as that might be, you have to look in a different direction. you have to find ways to, I don’t know, build some semblance of hope if that’s what you’re interested in in other ways because the team being sold is just not a news flash that’s going to come anytime soon. So, it’s like how do you how do you kind of change your direction? It’s it’s why we’re talking about front office and ownership today because the Rockies are trying to change their front office or they’re in the process of changing their front office. And so, for the moment, there is a semblance of hope that hey, you know, maybe this time it’s different. I mean, I know we’re preaching to the choir here, but like it just, you know, you have to just kind of hold on to hope that at some point something different is going to happen. And also, the Mfords know that if they start winning again, they’ll make more money. Now, whether or not they’re willing to get out of their own ways to do that, that’s a different story. But if they do start winning again, they will start making more money. And so, you know, I’m not going to sit here and say the Mfords don’t care about winning. It’s whether or not they a can put their ego aside to kind of get out of their own way and b are they willing to invest in that? Are they willing to invest in the winning uh opportunities? Um so yeah, and that’s a tough part for them is like they they don’t have so many side investments, so many other things going on that they can say, you know what, if if we throw an extra 50 million bucks at this team, what’s going to happen? Like we then then hopefully profit about that. like they don’t have the margins to take those risks. Whereas, like we said, like you want to throw $150 million into stadium renovations for the Broncos, they’re cool to do that and say, “We’re tearing this thing down in 5 years regardless.” Mhm. Yeah. It’s just a different world. It is a different world. It’s a different beast. Um, I do want to talk a little bit more about that and I also want to talk about the ABS because the ABS, we talked about the Nuggets. The Nuggets can build around Nicole Joic. The ABS took a different approach. They kind of were a draft and development team. you know, you you drafted Macar, you drafted McKinnon, you you developed those guys. You brought a front office in that can handle that. And you’ve built a championship team, one of the best teams, if not the best team in the NHL in these last couple years. And uh they they’re in a very unique situation with their front office. And uh I I want to talk about that here in a little bit. So, let’s pause just one quick break. Um we’ll pause for our last break and then uh we’ll finish things up. All right, let’s talk about the ABS for a moment because the ABS, you know, the ABS are what the Rockies claim that they are, right? The Rockies have always said, “We’re a draft and development organization, right? We don’t have the money to go sign $700 million contract, so we’re going to draft and develop.” And meanwhile, the Rockies have been arguably the worst draft and development team in in baseball. So, you know, there’s a huge disconnect there. The the the ABS on the other hand, they they’re they’re a draft and development team. They don’t sign huge free agents, you know, like like some other teams do, but they’re a good draft and development team. They drafted McKinnon. They drafted Macar and they built those players into a into the best players in the NHL and then built a team around that. And now you’ve got, you know, your vice president, uh, Joe Sack, a former player who’s done an incredible job of managing the the the the operational side of the ABS. And then obviously Chris McFarland involved in that, too. But the ABS went the former player route, right? They they they said, “Sack, you are the guy that, God, made people fall in love with the AS in the first place. You are the hero of the Colorado Avalanche. let’s put you in charge and give you the the resources to grow this team. And he’s done it perfectly. Is there a world in which you could see something like that happening for an organization like the Rockies or even even down the road a team like the Nuggets or or the Broncos? I mean like it it’s a very unique situation having when you saw John Elway do that with the with the Broncos like it’s worked for for the ABS. It has. I think going back to the start, um, the reason the ABS are drafted and developed is because they were so bad, you know, and so you look, you know, 2009, third overall pick, Matt Duchain, 2011, second pick, Gabe Landiskog. 2013, first pick, Nathan McKinnon. 2017, fourth pick, Kale Mar, whereas the Nuggets just weren’t bad enough to to have those picks. You know, they they did have the number three pick um in 2003 with Carmelo. Um, but they they’ve only had two more top 10 picks since with in 2015 Emanuel Moodier, 2016 Jamal Murray. And so they just didn’t have like they weren’t bad enough to be drafting in the top 10. Um, they were, you know, they were a fringe playoff team and they have at one point had like the longest playoff streak in the NBA. Um whereas the ABS were just so bad that they’re drafting in the top five every other year and you’re stacking up talent and so it’s a lot easier to be draft and develop. I think um in terms of the the um former player, it works. I mean, it works if he’s good and knows what he’s doing. I mean, the Nuggets that Calvin Calvin Booth was a good NBA player and he was the GM there for a bit. Um it was all right. Always same situation, you know? Right. Yeah. And I I think baseball is different because the numbers just matter so much. It’s numbers. Yeah. Like it’s it’s you got to be a nerd. Go. I guess they tried the Harvard guy with Jeff Brideich and and it worked, right? Like backto-back playoff appearances the only time. It’s just that he was such an ass that everybody hated him and you just couldn’t keep an organiz like you you decide that you’re going to go get Nolan Aronado and pay him all the money. Um a good deal. Um and there’s a bunch of things that happen including Bridich saying, “Yeah, it’s not going to stop us from paying anybody else.” And then you go, what was it? 527 days without signing a free agent. You let DJ Mayhew walk and then just personalitywise there’s there’s those conflicts. But I mean that’s part of the job is you piss off the guy who carried you to back-to-back playoff appearances but with massive hits in every big moment being the best third baseman in the history of the game. Who’s who’s the Cardinals third baseman from like the 80s? Um Schwarz something like that. Um the guy everybody else long time ago. Yeah, in my Nolan era, it was it was a big moment when the best third baseman of all time said it’s actually Nolan now. Um, but when your personality is so bad that you make your best player, the guy who’s kind of carrying the franchise so mad that he has to go, that doesn’t work. And so, I mean, there is there’s something about the former player. It’s easier for Nathan McKinnon to get along with Joe Sackic. Like, that’s legends. There’s like a way that you treat there’s a way that you talk. But I think with the Rockies in particular, it’s it’s math. I I think I agree with you. Baseball is just a different beast. And Felix says in the chat, in the Toyota chat, Christian, you think Todd Helton has the ability to do what John Elway did with the Broncos? I I don’t think he does. And I don’t think he wants to, first of all, but even if he did, even if Todd Helton wanted to be involved with the Rockies from a front office standpoint, I I just think there’s the best front offices in baseball now are guys that just it’s scheming, it’s it’s stats, it’s data, it’s analytics, it’s scouting, it’s all of that kind of stuff. Yes, you got to have a good feel for the team. And I think where where you can make this point of former players making an impact is with the manager. Like you can, you know, if Todd Helton wanted to come manage the Rockies one day, and we’ve talked about this on the Rockies pod before, but if you know, not right now where the team’s trying to rebuild, but if the team got to a point where they were good one day and they said, you know, we’re missing a good manager. We we need a that’s the last piece. A good former manager. Look at Dan Wilson with the Mariners, right? You had you had you had Scott Service, who was the manager before Dan Wilson. He couldn’t get that starstudded team to the playoffs year after year for in Seattle. and you bring in Dan Wilson and albeit you added a couple big pieces during the trade deadline in Seattle, but Dan Wilson, the former star catcher for the Mariners, connects with his players and got them to almost a World Series, you know, and so I think where a former player plays into Major League Baseball, it has to be a manager. I think front office, it just it’s not the same beast. Um, and and it kind of changes the context of everything. Um, hockeyy’s just a different a different breed, you know? I mean, the GM, even Sackic as vice president, like you said, you you’re working still a lot with the players and it’s it’s just it’s it’s more trades, it’s more contracts, it’s more like that kind of stuff. It’s not as much of a scouting specific role, right? And I and I even feel like at this point I feel the numbers have gone too far. Like there is there is in baseball, you mean? Right. Well, there there is more to the scouting and being able to see ways that you can develop a a player versus just like it is all numbers, but based on where the Rockies are right now, it’s like no, you go all in on the numbers like like the overcorrect to the going the numbers route and the analytics route and then you can have the conversation about, hey, maybe there is a little bit too much nuance here. The good teams get to figure out where exactly that line is. As of now, it’s this guy’s hitting this against this and whatever the babip and the the the exit velocity. Yeah, whip and all the things that we have never heard about because I mean the Dodgers have whatever a dozen guys whose sole job is just working on AI and and creating like learning models that they use for all that. Like before I can say the Rockies have gone too far in the numbers route, as somebody who wants to say no, scouting matters, they’ve got to Yeah, you got to get miles to go that way. You have to Yeah, we were talking about this yesterday on our Rocky show. The the Rockies need two to three years of just digging themselves out of a hole, right? That whoever comes in as the new general manager or president of baseball operations, it I was asked the question yesterday, um, how long do I think until the Rockies can be competitive again or or competing for a playoff spot? And my answer was you. It’s going to be at least a couple years until you can just get back on track, right? Like not even competitive again, just riding the ship. You’ve spent the last seven years quite literally digging a grave for yourself. I mean, you’ve been digging the deepest hole you could possibly be in. Your an analytics department is a mess. Your scouting is a mess. You’ve Who knows what the draft is going to play out to be, but you have you’ve had top five draft picks the last, you know, handful of years. We’ll see what trade deadlines have come and gone. Like the farm system is the one of the worst in baseball. You’re obviously your major league baseball team is one of the worst in baseball. Like you have to dig yourself out of that hole first before you can start have playing the I don’t know playing the the scheming game. Right now you got to be moneyball. You got to be Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. I need you to be finding ways to just, you know, become a competent baseball team again. Like going and trading Nolan Jones for Tyler Freeman. Yeah, you got to hit a bunch of those moves. There’s a I’ve got a lot of thoughts on the Rockies. The first one is if if for some reason they decided, you know what, we just need to we’re willing to say there’s a bunch of good pitchers on the market this year and so we’re going to go pay, you know, Framber Valdez and Sha Imanaga. Bang, we got those two. We’re gonna go what? Schwarber is a free agent. Pete Alonzo is a free agent. We’re gonna go snag one of those guys and we’re just going to have like there are ways to spend your way out of it. Exactly. But there’s just no way they’re giving out three of those contracts. I think there’s a world in which they decide we can give out one of those contracts, but three is just you know they’ve never done it before and I think to me the Rockies need to build from the top down as crazy as that sound. Like typically in these in these rebuilds you need to build like okay load up on the prospects keep the system like what they need is enough actual MLB players that you’re prospects are actually prospects and not up in the majors batting 215 you know like you need to actually have the MLB guys to send all them down because there’s nothing they can do to tear down like the you’ve got three maybe four guys you can get a decent return for and one is Ezekiel Tovar you’re 23-year-old 23 now 22 24 now 24-y old turning 24. Exactly. It’s like, well, that’s the exact guy that you kind of need as a team that’s trying to compete in 3 years when he’ll be approaching his prime. You know, Hunter Goodman who’s 25 like and not signing these and not signing these the the the Allen Tos, the Owen Millers, where you’re like, why what business does this guy have playing on a baseball team right now? Why are you in a position where you have to play these guys? Right. So, yes, I I agree. I agree with Ricky in the chat. It’s the Rockies are unfortunately years away from being competitive, but you have to start taking a step in the right direction. And I’ve said this a million times. I’m going to continue saying this, especially on TDSP. U other teams in Colorado. The Nuggets and the ABS specifically used to be horrible. They the the Nuggets were one of the worst teams in NBA history not too long ago. I was still alive when this was happening. It wasn’t that long ago. the ABS very recently were really really bad. It It’s not like you can’t turn things around, but you but the Rockies I think the issue with the Rockies and what makes people so upset is that there’s too many ownership hands in the in the cookie jar where it feels like, yeah, okay, we know that we can turn things around if you have competent people in place, but the ownership feels like they’re putting the brakes on anything that could possibly warrant positive progress. And I will say as someone who covers the Colorado Rockies, I do think although yes, there is still a Mford in charge. Yes, the Mfords still own the team, I do think Walker Manford has a better feel for just the reality of of what his dad has caused this organization to be and what where this organization needs to go. And so far, things have been heading in the right direction. They’re going outside the organization to bring in a new GM, a president of baseball operations. they they created a chief strategy um role within the organization that they’re gonna that’s going to kind of manage the the finances and the the data and analytics, all that kind of stuff. I think Walker realizes, hey, we we suck, man. We got to figure this out. This isn’t working. And yes, Rocky’s fans, myself included, has been have been yelling at the organization for the last seven years to figure it out. But I do think there is at least signs that things could be headed back in a better direction. Right. And so much of it comes back to the business side. It does like and that’s and that’s the real killer because you never talk about that with the Broncos. Like it’s very rare we talk about like I don’t know they they really got to nail their sponsorships. Like it’s always like okay you have this much salary cap space. How can you manipulate it to get more with the Rockies? Like they again you lose $50 million off of off of the top in that TV deal when you’re a team that last year spent what like I think they were down to like 130 or something. Like that’s a significant chunk and you want all those investments off the off to the side too. Invest in analytics, invest in um your training staff and your coaching staff and figuring out how that you can develop all your young guys and make them better. Like you need to find a way to turn bigger profits so that you have the money to go and sign these guys. And that’s why everything is just so dire right because it’s all like you’re not making money like they’re not as much as we say like they’re all about the profits. They are not profitable right now. like there’s no way that they came out of this year with more money than they started with. Um, you have that issue. You have the fact that you don’t really have prospects. Like your your farm systems 20 24th now out of 30. Your MLB team doesn’t have guys where you can say like, “Oh, we can tear down and trade them for prospects.” Like they’re all guys who the oldest of the bunch. I guess you do have Brettton Doyle, but outside of him, they’re all like 26 or younger. Yeah. Like those are the guys who you want a guy at at about 30 when you’re trying to compete. like those those that’s your window like and it’s not like you have many of those guys in the first place either. So they’re they need to find a way to have money that they can invest wisely and then hopefully in a decade all of that pays off to the point where you’re like, “Yep, we’re back to we’re back to being right around 10th in in the majors and in payroll.” Yeah. Yeah. And the Rockies have shown that they spend some money, but like you said, there’s a lot of things that have to go right. I’m I’m assuming we’re we’re gonna get some uh information on on who the Rockies choose to be their next general manager, president of baseball operations pretty soon. Uh I mean they they finalized their interviews at least from uh some public rumors and stuff that came out this week. Yesterday I believe was the I think they were interviewing Matt Foreman. So things could change over over the next few days um for the Rockies and heading into this off seasonason. It it don’t expect the world next year. I mean it’s not like the Rockies are going anywhere. He will not be putting a, you know, a sizable bet down. Yeah. That the Rockies are going to win a certain amount of games. Not again. Not again. You learned your lesson on that one. Yeah. But I hope I remember that lesson in April. I know. I know. But uh but it’s things hopefully are headed headed slightly in the right direction. So that bad again. Thanks for coming on with me, man. It was fun. This was good time. Appreciate you guys hanging out in the chat. It’s always good to talk about uh you know, some of our other teams here, our successful teams around the the Colorado uh sports world. But yeah, thanks for watching. We’ll be back uh next Wednesday at noon for more Denver sports podcast. Be sure to tune in to the Broncos show coming up in 15 minutes. You guys got a lot to talk about. Good luck. Trade deadline coming up. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you guys next time right here on the Denver Sports Podcast.

With the Rockies on the verge of flipping their front office and hopefully beginning on the path of becoming a competent baseball organization again, we discuss the most influential front office and ownership changes in Colorado sports history. Christian Saez and Henry Chisholm break it down on The Denver Sports Podcast.

0:00 Start
2:39 Denver Broncos ownership
19:15 Denver Nuggets ownership
36:00 Colorado Rockies ownership
44:47 Colorado Avalanche ownership

Join the DNVR Supporter’s Club and get a custom DNVR badge next to your name!: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8aOXvlqQqMlTFvbbAarD-A/join

📬 Denver sports in your inbox: https://thednvr.com/newsletter

An ALLCITY Network Production

PARTY WITH US: https://thednvr.com/events

ALL THINGS DNVR: https://linktr.ee/dnvrsports

BALL-KNOWER BONUS/Merch: https://promotion.allcitynetwork.com/all

SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/c/DNVR_Sports

BUY GOLDEN ERA: Golden Era | Triumph Books

Christy Sports: Get 20% off your season rentals when you book online at http://christysports.com/learn/rental-help/dnvrseasonrental.html and use code DNVR20. Must book season rentals online to get the discount. Book by 11/23. Outside is better with expert service and advice in every store.

Toyota: Visit Your Front Range Toyota Stores at a location near you – Toyota is the official vehicle of DNVR. Toyota – Let’s Go Places!

First Bank: So, if you’re ready for better banking and the chance to earn a little extra, head to efirstbank.com/bonus. Certain restrictions and requirements apply. Member FDIC.

Monarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/dnvr

Use code DNVR50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and 20% off your next month with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/dnvr50.

Gametime: Download the app, create an account, and use code DNVR for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.

Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: DNVR for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.

When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions.

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Leave a Reply