The Denver Broncos of the National Football League ( NFL ) passed to the Walton-Penner family for US$4.65 billion, a record price paid for an American sports franchise. Walmart's heir Rob Walton, his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband, Greg Penner, led the Walton-Penner group. The offering includes Mellody Hobson, co-founder of Ariel Investments and chairman of the board of directors of Starbucks Corp. and a director of JP Morgan Chase, in the holding company. She is the wife of film producer George Lucas.
"This is a significant step toward an exciting new chapter in Broncos history," CEO Joe Ellis said.
The deal is to review subject by the NFL's finance committee, and 24 votes in favour of the league's owners are needed for sale to be approved, but there is believed to be no opposition to the transaction.
ESPN said it is expected to take 60 to 90 days for the sale to be approved and the deal to close.
NFL franchises rarely go up for sale. The league is profitable for owners, and in March 2021, the NFL nearly doubled the value of its TV rights package, with a new deal reportedly worth up to $110 billion over 11 years.
The Walton-Penner family is buying the Pat Bowlen Trust, heirs to Pat Bowlen, who had controlled the Broncos since 1984.
According to Forbes, Rob Walton has a personal net worth of $58 billion. He is the former chairman of Walmart, the American retail group founded by his father, Sam Walton, in 1962.
According to The Wall Street Journal and Sportivo, the $4.6 billion is more than double the $2.2 billion hedge fund manager David Tepper paid for the Carolina Panthers in 2018.
The latest signal of the deal is that investors are out to pay billions of dollars for big sports teams. This is what happened with interest generated by the sale of Chelsea FC, which was taken by the American Todd Boehly and the investment group Clearlake Capital.
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