John Elway had an amazing NFL career. He threw for more than 50,000 yards, an even 300 touchdown passes, and made nine Pro Bowl teams. He rode off into the sunset, too. His final two seasons ended with Super Bowl championships.
John’s last NFL game was Super Bowl XXXIII, which took place on January 31, 1999. In that game, John led the Broncos to a 34-19 victory over the Falcons and was named Super Bowl MVP. It was the perfect capstone to an incredible 16-year career. A few months later, on May 2, 1999, John officially announced his retirement from the NFL.
But there’s a twist. The 1998 NFL regular season kicked off (literally) on September 6, 1998. A few weeks later, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen approached John Elway with an offer. At the time, the Broncos owed $21 million in deferred salary.
Bowlen presented Elway with the following opportunity:
- The chance to buy 10% of the team for $15 million.
- The chance to earn another 10% if Elway agreed to forgo his $21 million deferred salary.
To simplify and combine, Bowlen was offering to sell Elway 20% of the Broncos for $36 million, while only having to come up with $15 million in cash down. At these numbers, the team was valued at $180 million.
And Bowlen even threw in a sweetener.
If, for whatever reason, Elway was unhappy with his investment after five years, Bowlen would buy him out at his purchase price plus $5 million. Elway would also have the right of first refusal to buy any additional stake in the team, should the Bowlen family sell.
At this point, Elway had made more than $50 million during his NFL career and just one year earlier sold his John Elway Autos car dealership to AutoNation for $82.5 million. That deal included an annual licensing fee that Elway would receive for the next decade. So he was flush.
Tragically, despite this being a relative pittance to own 20% of an NFL team (all things considered), John Elway DECLINED the offer. Fast forward to 2022, and this officially became a terrible mistake…
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It Gets Worse
John declined the offer partly because he had a different investment in mind. Unfortunately, that other investment turned out to be a $150 million Ponzi scheme. John lost $15 million in the scam.
Meanwhile, about a year after the dust settled around the Ponzi scheme, the Broncos were valued at $1 billion for the first time.
Seeking A Buyer
Pat Bowlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014. He died in June 2019. Between 2014 and 2022, the Broncos were managed by an entity called the “Bowlen Trust,” which was overseen by Pat’s seven children. As you might imagine, coming to a consensus on what to do with the team was difficult when there were seven voices chiming in.
On February 1, 2022, the Bowlen Trust announced its intention to commence the process of finding a buyer. On August 9, 2022, the Bowlen Trust announced it had agreed to sell the Broncos to a group of investors led primarily by Walmart heir Rob Walton. The price Walton agreed to pay?
$4.65 billion
You’re probably already doing the math on what that means to John Elway’s lost 20% stake. At the $4.65 billion, Elway’s 20% stake would be worth…
$930 million
And please recall that John could have owned his 20% stake for just $36 million.
While John Elway sits atop a perfectly impressive $145 million net worth, a slight twist of fate could have put him in an entirely different league. Had he accepted the offer back in 1998, today he’d likely be approaching billionaire status today, not just as a Hall of Fame quarterback, but as one of the wealthiest former athletes in history.
Content shared from www.celebritynetworth.com.