Pat Bowlen's two eldest children would drop their suit to invalidate his trust if team is put up for saleGETTY IMAGES
Broncos President & CEO Joe Ellis is ready for a "trial and then everything else" when it comes to selling the team, according to Ryan O'Halloran of the DENVER POST. Ellis' message yesterday was a response to whether he and fellow Pat Bowlen trustees Rich Slivka and Mary Kelly "would consider securing a court order to put the team up for sale before the July 12 trial putting the trustees against Amie Klemmer and Beth Bowlen Wallace, Bowlen's two oldest children." If the trustees put the Broncos on the market, it is "likely" Klemmer and Wallace "would drop their suit, which seeks to invalidate their father's 2009 trust on the grounds he did not have the capacity to understand his estate-planning documents due to Alzheimer's." Ellis said that the league "has granted him and the trustees the 'ability' to carry out their duties until March 2022." The trustees have "identified 30-year-old Brittany Bowlen," who rejoined the Broncos in '19 as VP/Strategic Initiatives, as the "potential choice to be the team's next controlling owner." Klemmer and Wallace are "unlikely to vote for their half-sister." A source said that the NFL has told the trustees and Bowlen children that "unanimous agreement is required for one of the kids to become the controlling owner." That "leaves one option," sell the team. At least for now, the trustees are "opting to wait for Judge John Scipione's decision following a trial in which dispositions were completed last summer." Any settlement talk between the sides "would revolve around the team being sold" (DENVER POST, 1/6).
SORTING IT OUT: Ellis yesterday stressed that it is "in the best interests of the organization, the fans and the Bowlen family to get the ownership mess resolved." In Denver, Mark Kiszla writes, "During the next contentious 12 months, I don't know whether Brittany Bowlen can win control of the football team Mr. B built, or whether Beth Bowlen Wallace will force a sale." Kiszla: "But I'm fairly certain who's going to be the loser in this ugly dispute: The Broncos. And everybody who loves them." From a "hopelessly lost on-field identity to a lack of accountability for a company culture gone stale," the Broncos have "far too many issues to be bickering about who should be their owner." The league has "potential buyers knocking" on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's door, and if the Bowlen family "decided right now to sell, it's very reasonable to believe the deal could close and new ownership could be approved within nine months." Kiszla writes after "wrestling with each other in court, I seriously doubt if the Bowlen kids will ever be able to make peace and allow Brittany to take control, rather than sell the team, pocket the money and go their separate ways" (DENVER POST, 1/6).
