Kroenke bought Nuggets, kept team in Denver, now hoping to deliver title

DENVER (AP) —Some might say Stan Kroenke and his family would be pulling off theimpossible by bringing a long-awaited NBA title to Denver.

Lessdiscussed — at least these days — was their willingness, in 1999,to dive into a messy acquisition process for a largely irrelevantfranchise that had been considered a relocation prospect as the21st century approached.

All of thetalk of them relocating no longer exists.

Now, theconversation is about how the Nuggets were able to reach theirfirst NBA Finals thanks to the stubborn patience displayed by theKroenkes, who have taken an unorthodox route toward assembling anunorthodox winner. Denver hosts the Miami Heat in Game 2 Sundaynight afterwinningthe Finals opener.

Kroenke’sdeal to purchase the Nuggets, along with the Colorado Avalanche andtheir home arena for $450 million, included a clause that tetheredthe NBA franchise to Denver for the ensuing 25 years. These days,the Nuggets are estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.93 billion.

“One thing Iknow about Stan is that when he sets his mind to doing something,and when he thinks he’s right, he’s going to fight for that,” saidWellington Webb, who was Denver’s mayor in 1999 and helped brokerthe deal that closed a year later between Kroenke and theNuggets.

ThoughKroenke married into money — he wed Walmart heiress Ann Walton in1974, a few years after meeting her during a ski trip to Aspen — hehad already honed his business chops. His first deal: Taking a$1,500 loan at 6% interest from his dad so he could buy part of aclothing shop with his friend.

Not longafter, he got into the real estate business, building shoppingcenters with a developer who was tight with Walmart founder SamWalton.

Real estateand sports are, these days, almost intertwined — a reality Kroenkegrasped quickly.

“I alwaysthought I’d enjoy (owning a sports franchise) because theprofessional sports business is part business and part sports,”Kroenke told the Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune in 2022, “and Ilove both of them.”

Kroenke’srepresentatives did not return messages left by The AssociatedPress seeking an interview.

His firstmajor jump into sports was his partnership with Rams owner GeorgiaFrontiere. In the mid-1990s, Frontiere was chafing at the inabilityof Los Angeles to build a new stadium, She was looking for partnersto bankroll a move to St. Louis. Kroenke bought in, and whenFrontiere died in 2008, he exercised his right to purchase amajority stake in the team.

The sad ironyis that it was Kroenke, the Missouri native, who moved the Rams outof St. Louis and back to LA where they are the main tenant in his$5.1 billion stadium. His connection with Denver — muchdifferent.

“One of mydreams was to be involved in a professional basketball team,”Kroenke told The Denver Post, shortly after closing the deal forthe Nuggets. “This is a dream I’ve had for a long time.”

There is, infact, a strong argument that the basketball trophy might be themost meaningful for a family that has amassed three Stanley Cuptrophies with the Avalanche, a Super Bowl trophy with the Rams andis still looking for glory with Arsenal, the Premier League soccerteam it has had a controlling interest in since 2011.

Kroeke’s son,Josh, was a standout basketball player in high school and played atUniversity of Missouri. He now runs the Nuggets.

“I thoughtthat you could bring a championship to Denver,” Josh said in arecent interview on team-owned Altitude Sports Radio. “Trying to dosomething that’s never been done before, it’s not always easy, andit’s usually met with a lot of resistance. ... We’re mostly excitedfor the city to get to experience this. But the job’s notdone.”

The Nuggetswere parked squarely in NBA purgatory when the team went on theblock in 1999, having not sniffed relevancy since their mid-80sheydey, when the teams were highlighted by coach Doug Moe’s uptempooffense. Their situation off the court wasn’t much better. In thelate ’80s, then-owner Sidney Shlenker had toyed with the idea ofmoving the team to Memphis.

His sale to amedia conglomerate that was never truly hot on owning sports teamsdid nothing to tamp the idea that the Nuggets were a team thatmight be available to move. And teams were moving; Between 2001-08,Memphis (from Vancouver), Oklahoma City (from Seattle) and NewOrleans (from Charlotte) all adopted existing franchises in aflurry of NBA reshuffling.

When Denverwent on the block, the highest bidder, billionaire businessmanDonald Sturm, came in with a $460 million offer, but balked at theidea that he couldn’t move the team.

In steppedKroenke, who had no problem with the arrangement. A side note: Toclose the sale, Kroenke had to outmaneuver another group fronted bynone other than John Elway.

“It was clearSturm wasn’t going to work out,” Webb said. “And my only questionwas, ‘Is the new guy going to be supportive of the team winning?’Because if the arena is full, not only do the owners make money,but city makes money, as well.”

The Kroenkeshave answered Webb’s question with their willingness — increasinglyrare in pro sports — to play the long game, both on the roster andon the bench.

The rosterwas built in workmanlike,no-dramafashion,highlightedby Nikola Jokic, who entered the league as an unheraldedsecond-round pick from Serbia. The coach, Michael Malone, was hiredin 2015, and there was never much talk of making changes afterdisappointing finishes to their seasons in 2018, 2019 and even lastyear.

Today, Malonesits behind only Gregg Popovich (Spurs), Erik Spoelstra (Heat) andSteve Kerr (Warriors) — who have a combined 11 championships ontheir coaching resumes — in terms of longevity among the NBA’s 30head coaches.

“That has aton to do with where we are today,” Malone said. “I couldn’t bemore thankful for working for an ownership group that is notimpatient and is not trying to find the next great thing, but issaying ‘Hey, listen, let’s let this grow and marinate intosomething special.’”

Despite hisfamily’s large role in the Denver sports scene — the Kroenkebusiness also owns the MLS Colorado Rapids, and the NationalLacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth, who lost the deciding game inthat league’s title series Saturday — Kroenke has still taken hisfair share of criticism around town.

It’s abyproduct of his 2004 move to bundle his teams’ TV rights and airthem on company’s new regional television network, Altitude.

In 2019, theregion’s biggest cable operator, Comcast, stopped carrying Altitudedue to a disagreement over fees the cable giant was charging tocarry the network. The ensuing legal battle has kept the Nuggetsoff the local airwaves in millions of homes for the last fourseasons. The battle between billion-dollar companies has left manyaverage Nuggets fans feeling like the only real losers in theequation.

But whateverbitterness lingers from the cable dispute has mostly been set asideover the past few months. All the playoff games have been onnational TV.

Meanwhile,Kroenke stays firmly in the background. He can make it from hisapartment at the top of Ball Arena through some back passagewaysand into his luxury suite to watch games in less than two minutes.Sometimes he brings his German Shepherd along.

“I think thatnot only is he a good businessman,” Webb said, “but he also feelshe has something special in Denver. And I think it’s always beenhis goal to do right by Denver.”