Penner is among owners involved in negotiations with league referees. He says Broncos still have a lot of work to do but the team already has great pieces in place.

PHOENIX — An NFL owner who is well-respected by his colleagues and the commissioner takes on two jobs.

One is to oversee the franchise he or she owns. The other is to help guide the league through its pursuit for the overall good of the game.

Greg Penner rather quickly became a two-hatted owner. He has emerged as one of the most influential figures in league matters to go along with his stewardship of the Broncos.

Although he has only been a Broncos owner and CEO for not quite four years, he is already serving on four of the top five league committees. Combined with fellow co-owner Carrie Penner, his wife, who serves on three league committees, the Penners represent the Broncos on seven league committees.

One of Greg Penner’s appointments was on the NFL Management Council Executive Committee that is handling the testy negotiations with the NFL Referees Association.

The contract between the league and its officials expires on May 31. If a deal isn’t struck by then, the league reportedly will start the process of recruiting, training and hiring replacement officials.

While the league has asked coaches and executives to limit comments on the matter, key owners have weighed in on the topic.

“First of all we have a tremendous amount of respect for our officials and the job that they do,’’ Penner said in a sit-down interview Monday with 9NEWS at the NFL annual meetings. “It’s very challenging. I think both sides are working to try and get to a good outcome.

“But we’re really focused on the performance and accountability measures that need to be part of the next CBA. And it’s our responsibility to be prepared in case there isn’t an agreement. We’re focused on what that would look like and making sure that we’re prepared because we’re going to be playing games in the fall no matter what.”

Penner actually wears three hats. He is also chairman of Walmart, the retail giant that is both the world’s largest company by revenue and world’s largest private employer, with 2.1 million employees. Whether in business or sports, dealing with 2.1 million workers at Walmart or 300 employees with the Broncos, Penner believes in continuity. It showed earlier this month with the Broncos as his team’s primary action during free agency was re-signing 17 of their own players.

“Whether it’s in business or sports, if you’ve got great people you want to retain them, you want to reward them,’’ Penner said. “You keep challenging them, set the bar higher. In this case we had a lot of great players. We got a number of great young players locked up early with contracts before we even got to free agency (Pat Surtain, Quinn Meinerz, Zach Allen, Nik Bonitto, Courtland Sutton, among them). And then once we got into that free agency period we liked a lot of our guys and wanted to bring them back.”

In his state-of-the-team press conference held the day after the Broncos’ season ended with a loss to New England in the AFC Championship, Penner said general manager George Paton and head coach Sean Payton would be opportunistically aggressive in free agency. It took a while before Penner’s words were proven correct, albeit it wasn’t until free agency essentially passed that the Broncos made their lone, big move, acquiring receiver Jaylen Waddle in a trade from Miami in exchange for a first-, third- and swap of fourth-round draft picks.

Was Penner surprised by how the Broncos’ offseason to date has played out?

“No, not surprised at all,’’ he said. “George came up with I think a really good plan. They were working at some areas where we could potentially be aggressive if it was the right fit and a player we felt could really help us. But we just didn’t see those. We loved the players that we re-signed and what they can bring us both from a performance standpoint as well as in the locker room.

“So we re-signed a number of players and then the opportunistic swing was when we saw the opportunity to make the Jaylen Waddle trade. Obviously gave up some draft capital for that, but we think he’s going to be a tremendous playmaker for us.”

With that, Penner was asked about his hopes and expectations for the Broncos in 2026 after they finished first in the AFC with a 14-3 regular-season record, then beat Buffalo in a second-round playoff game before falling to New England.

“We’re excited. I think Broncos Country is really excited,’’ Penner said. “I think coming off the season that we had we know we’ve got a lot of work to do going into this next season. It starts with the draft and then training camp. But we think we’ve got a lot of great pieces in place and we’re looking forward to it.”