Sale of Denver Broncos leads to $980,481 check for Longmont
Oct. 1—Longmont received an unexpected check for $980,481 last week thanks to the recent sale of the Denver Broncos Football Club.
In August, the Walton-Penner ownership group purchased the Broncos for $4.65 billion from the Pat Bowlen Trust.
"Nobody ever thought that ... the Broncos organization would sell for $4.65 billion," Matt Sugar, director of stadium affairs, said Friday.
The deal triggered components of the original lease and management agreement between the Metropolitan Football Stadium District and PDB Sports LTD that required Bowlen to share 2% of the net profit from the sale with the Stadium District.
"That 2% became $41 million, roughly," Sugar said, explaining how franchise debt and the cost of capital contributions had to be deducted from the $4.65 billion amount first.
Taxpayers in the seven-county Stadium District, which consists of Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties, funded 75% of Empower Field at Mile High's cost.
The stadium holds over 76,000 people and received funding from a one tenth of one percent sales tax that was implemented in the Stadium District from 2001 to 2011.
The Stadium District's Board of Directors voted to reallocate the $41 million back to the counties, cities and towns where the tax was collected.
After consulting with the Colorado Department of Revenue, the District determined that Longmont's share of the $41 million amounted to $980,481.
Provisions of the original lease and management agreement also require that the funds be spent on "youth activity programs," according to a letter received by the city from the Stadium District.
"It's pretty vague," Sugar said. "It could be an after school mentoring program. It could be a music program, an arts program. It could buy uniforms for the little league team. It could pay for whatever it costs for those kids to join a league."
Sugar said the district will request an accounting of how the funds were spent in a year.
"We're hoping that everybody takes that into consideration and does not take that money and go stick it in their road fund," Sugar said.
Members of the Longmont City Council were made aware of the check earlier this week and have yet to indicate how they would like to spend the money.
"We will bring it back to the City Council for discussion with some options for use," Rigo Leal, Longmont public information officer, wrote in an email. "Nothing has been identified as of yet."
