NFL envy: Broncos' ownership rift a testament to soaring values.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: Sports Biz - National Football League - Column

THE BRONCOS COULDN'T GET PAST THE FIRST round of the playoffs, but a bitter ownership dispute has kept things lively in the off-season by providing a peek into the rarified sanctum of NFL economics.

Testimony and documents offered during the federal trial involving former team owner Edgar Kaiser underscore what a difference 22 years, a few gigantic TV deals and a new stadium make. Today's Broncos are worth $683 million, give or take, according to valuations published by Forbes magazine and bandied about during the trial between Kaiser and Broncos majority owner Pat Bowlen. Value-wise, that puts Bowlen's team seventh out of 32 NFL franchises.

Wasn't always that way. According to the Denver Post's account of testimony from the trial, investor George Gillett backed out of negotiations to purchase the Broncos for $54 million in 1982 after looking over the team's 1981 financial records and disliking what he saw. Gillett testified it seemed unlikely that the team, then owned by Kaiser, would make its projected numbers for the year, and he bowed out of the talks.

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Hard to imagine a financial strain in today's NFL, where sold-out stadiums, multi-billion dollar TV rights and a model labor agreement make the league the envy of professional sports (ask NHL commissioner Gary Bettman). Since Gillett took a pass, the Broncos and the league at large have grown up strong. Today's combined market valuation of 32 NFL franchises is estimated at $20 billion, and an $18 billion TV rights deal hammered out in 1996 showers every NFL team owner with more money each year--$75 million--than Bowlen paid for the Broncos in total in 1984. Had Gillett made the '82 deal, his potential total return-on-investment ratio over the 20-year period would be 12-to-1. (And who knows? He might even have felt flush enough to keep Clinton Portis around.)

Things aren't looking nearly as rosy in the NHL, where 19 teams collectively lost $342 million last season, according to a league-commissioned economic report unveiled Feb. 12 by former SEC boss Arthur Levitt. The disavowal of these findings came swiftly from the NHL Players Association, but even labor supporters have...