The Denver Broncos have a new ownership group with Walmart heir Rob Walton serving as the majority owner and Greg Penner stepping into chief executive officer duties as a co-owner.
The ownership group will have the final say on everything, but they’ll focus primarily on the business side of the team. Walton won’t become the new Jerry Jones — Denver’s ownership group doesn’t plan to interfere with the team’s roster decisions.
“We’re big believers in empowering people,” Penner said last week. “We love football … but we’re not going to be calling plays. We’re not going to be drafting players. We’re going to empower this team led by George Paton and Nathaniel Hackett to make those key decisions. Obviously, part of this fun is learning and understanding and all of that but we’re going to be [making the football decisions]. They’re going to make the football decisions.”
Paton will still be in charge of the team’s roster decisions and the owners will aim to give him the resources required to compete for titles. That certainly sounds like a recipe for success.
“The big vision is that we want to win football championships,” Penner said. “We want to do it in the right way. The first place you have to start is with the people. And on the football side, we couldn’t be more excited about what we have, with George, Nathaniel, Russell [Wilson] in place.”
It seems that Walton will have a pretty hands-off approach, with Penner handling the day-to-day duties while serving as the face of the ownership group. Walton is ultimately the controlling owner, though, and he has one goal in mind.
“Our number one priority is putting a winning team on the field to win Super Bowls for Broncos Country,” Walton said.
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