In part I of a three-part series for Saturday’s 9NEWS quarterly special, Carrie Walton Penner talks about her journey to becoming a Broncos owner.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — This is how it started for Carrie Walton Penner as an owner of the Denver Broncos.
The granddaughter of the late, great Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, and daughter of Rob Walton, the oldest of Sam’s four children, Carrie had been coming to Colorado most of her life, first living here during here grade school years, third grade through seventh, which were the Broncos’ Orange Crush years as it so happened. Then later with her husband Greg Penner, Chairman of the Board for Walmart, and their four children to ski in the winters, visit in the summers.
“We talked at one point, and this is a number of years ago, about what would it look like if we did something that was really unique as a family,’’ Carrie said in a wide-ranging interview with 9NEWS this week for the program special, “Leading with Passion: Broncos Owner Carrie Walton Penner,” to be telecast 6 p.m. Saturday. As for the 9NEWS website, this is Part I of a three-part series about Carrie Walton Penner’s journey to becoming a Broncos owner, her Colorado upbringing, and her impact on the franchise, community and NFL.
“We thought a long time about what that might be,” Carrie continued. “And we came up with one thing that it could be: the Broncos.”
Beyond doing something as a family, Carrie expressed her strong desire to be fully invested as a steward of the NFL franchise. While in a bit of a drought at the time, the Broncos were one of the most successful, valuable and popular sports franchises with a passionate fan base.
“We take it very seriously,” Carrie said. “Greg and I both said, ‘If we’re going to do this we’re going to go all in and we’ll give it 100% of what we have.’ We have different skill sets, and we try to bring that in a way that really helps to elevate everything that we do across the organization.”
Initial talks date back to the Broncos’ Peyton Manning years, the winningest four-year period in franchise history highlighted by two Super Bowl appearances. Pat Bowlen owned the team but was dealing with Alzheimer’s that would incapacitate him, by medical declaration, in December 2013 as the team was en route to Super Bowl XLVIII.
Team CEO Joe Ellis and two other non-family members had been designated as trustees in charge of Pat Bowlen’s Trust before the eventual Pro Football Hall of Fame owner died in 2019 and the franchise was put up for sale in 2022.
There were multiple bidders, but the Walton-Penner ownership group had no equal once they became serious about purchasing the team. As it was with every major decision made by the family, the choice to come forward to buy the Broncos came after a family meeting.
The kids were young adults, attending colleges in the West and Northeast and a video conference became the mode of family communication.
“We did a family Zoom,’’ Carrie said. “As soon as we realized we were actually serious about this, it was, they need to be on board or we’re not going to do it. And we said, ‘Anyone can say no, anyone can say we want or we don’t want this. If they’re all in, we’re all in.
“They were all, ‘Wow. Yeah.’ And so it was kind of a timing that came back around and really worked out cool. But that’s part of my family upbringing, too. We had family meetings about Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation when that was started.”
Along with Rob Walton, they added several other successful part-owners to round out one of sports’ most accomplished ownership groups.
“We brought in just incredible partners,’’ Carrie said. “Condoleezza Rice and Lewis Hamilton and Melody Hobson. And so it’s been a great privilege and fun to have an ownership group that is just outstanding in so many different ways to come into this and be thinking about, ‘How do we do this and how do we really kind of elevate what we each know?”
Elevate? More like skyrocket. In just three years, the Walton-Penner ownership group has transformed the Broncos from a foundering franchise that had not reached the playoffs in six years, was on its fifth head coach in nine years, and was changing starting quarterbacks about once a year, to the best in the NFL. By nearly every metric — on-field success, current and former player relations, sports performance, revenue generation, fan interest & the gameday experience, philanthropic impact, facilities — the Walton-Penner group has enjoyed unprecedented success in such a relatively short period of time.
Not that there weren’t growing pains. Initially, the Broncos’ struggles didn’t get any better through the first few months of the Walton-Penner regime.
Officially approved by the full NFL ownership group in August 2022, the Penners inherited the fresh hiring of head coach Nathaniel Hackett and the blockbuster trade for quarterback Russell Wilson, who was supposed to be the franchise’s savior. But before the end of that first season, Greg Penner, who immediately assumed the Broncos’ Chief Executive Officer position with oversight of both football and business operations, fired Hackett. After a throughout search, the Broncos hired Sean Payton as the team’s next head coach.
The Broncos ultimately moved on from Wilson after his second year — eating a record $39 million in salary and a league-record $85 million in dead cap. And look at the Broncos now.
Payton and general manager George Paton, whom the Penners fully supported through the adversity of 2023, picked Bo Nix from a six-deep quarterback draft class to be their guy and after the Broncos reached the postseason last year for the first time in nine years, they hold the NFL’s best record with three games left in the regular season this year.
“When we came in in 2022, the optimism was significant,’’ Carrie said. “So we thought we were coming into something that was going to be a completely different season than what ended up being the case. I tell people the learning curve was so steep. We were coming into sports for the first time and, really getting our feet on the ground. It felt a little bit like we jumped into the deep end.
“But we realized quickly this team is so special. We knew it was special, but then we realized how special it is to the community and to generations of fans, as well as our alumni who created the organization that we have, and the history. And so the responsibility that comes with that is significant.
“I think our learning curve that first season was probably what you might get in five to 10 years of seasons of learning. So I actually think it was a little bit of a blessing in disguise.’’
Indeed, looking back, that first year, the abysmal 5-12 first season of 2022 had to happen.
“It was painful. But, yeah, we learned a lot,’’ Carrie said.
For people who have been successful all their lives, Greg and Carrie Penner were inspired with the resolve to dig deeper into the NFL business and what it took to do everything – from hiring the right football people, to investing in the business aspect and facilities, to making sure the fans and community leaders were invested in the team – to bring glory back to the Broncos.
The difficult slide of 2022 helped the Penners better appreciate the rise of 2025. The victorious postgame locker room, with its smoke machine and boom box music and raucous celebrations, includes Carrie thanking players for their efforts and celebratory hugs. The scene is called, Club Dub.
“We like Club Dub and we’ve gotten a lot of Club Dub this year, which has been really nice,’’ said Carrie, whose Broncos are 12-2 with an 11-game winning streak heading into the next game Sunday against 10-4 Jacksonville at Empower Field at Mile High. “Winning’s a lot better than losing. It’s a lot more fun. I think getting to know the players, we’ve got really special people in the locker room and getting to know who they are and their stories.
“It’s not just about the excitement after the game. It’s really about knowing who they are and who’s just had a child or just got married. And, so I think really taking the time to know who’s in that locker room and getting to see it come around and adding to the locker room. The way that we think about who we’re bringing in to the organization, and George and Sean both do a great job of thinking about who do we have coming in here in order to continue to elevate the culture of the organization is really showing itself on the field, but also in this brotherhood of players that really are creating something special.”
Culture. It’s a word circulated frequently from the Broncos this year. Sean Payton refers to it. The players to a man talk about it. It once seemed so ambiguous, but culture is now everywhere in the team sports vernacular.
Know who sets the culture with the Broncos? Greg and Carrie Penner. When the players come to work each day and see the $175 million practice field and team headquarters nearing the end of its construction, when they hear about plans to build a privately funded state-of-the-art stadium and mixed-use community, they understand the standard.
“Whatever you do, if you show up with excellence in whatever seat you sit in, that makes a difference in our culture,’’ Carrie said. “And I think it makes a difference in whether or not we’re winning on Sundays.
“Accountability is really important. And Greg said this in his first conversation that accountability has to start at the very top. And we really feel like that’s important. Having the exposure that we’ve had to Walmart and really understanding how strong culture transcends any one person, whether it be a coach or an ownership team, really if you get culture right, and if you instill a culture well in an organization, it lasts for a long time.”