Justin Hotop
Apparently, inflation works in many ways.
Early last week, the Denver Broncos of the National Football League entered a sale agreement with the Walton-Penner family ownership group. The agreement was for $4.65 billion. Yes with a “B.” That is a record price paid for a North American sports franchise. The Walton-Penner group -- headed by Walmart heir Rob Walton; his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner; and her husband, Greg Penner paid nearly double the price of what the Carolina Panthers cost David Tepper, when he purchased the team in 2018 for $2.3 billion.
So that’s what a team headed by John Elway and has a championship history costs these days?
The most paid previously for a North American sports franchise was $2.475 billion in 2020 by Steven Cohen to purchase the New York Mets. A group led by Todd Boehly, who has interests in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Lakers among his vast portfolio, recently purchased Chelsea in the English Premier League for more than $5 billion.
What does all these extremely large dollar amounts mean?
Well, probably nothing to me, because I most likely won’t see that amount of money in my entire lifetime.
So I got to thinking, what could a person buy with $4.65 billion dollars?
By the time people read this column in the newspaper? Probably just a few gallons of gas.
Ok, that was meant as a joke, but probably not too far off from the actual truth.
I could use some of that gas to fuel the Bugatti Bolide, which is classified as the fastest car in the world, clocking in at about 310 miles per hour and costs more than $4.7 million.
While that would be quite fun to drive, I could probably only do so once, because I would end up getting a speeding ticket, or two (maybe hundreds). My parents always tell me I have the heaviest foot in the family, so I should drive my old reliable Focus instead.
I could probably take an extravagant vacation to the Caribbean or a foreign country like Switzerland or something. However, let’s be honest. I have no desire to leave the United States , so I’ll probably end up going out west to the mountains or something, especially if my mom tags along.
The sports experiences won’t nearly reach the billion dollar status because all I would like to do is sit in the green seats of a St. Louis Cardinal game once (or an entire season). Those tickets cost a mere $300 per seat or $20,000 per season. That’s nothing if I had billions of dollars.
Even the Cardinals franchise as a whole is worth $2.45 billion, which is half of the Broncos worth, despite the eight less championships. The NFL does some big business, I guess.
Los Angeles Lakers tickets would barely cost that much either, so I could see LeBron James play one more time before he retires.
Mansions and big houses wouldn’t do a dent in that amount either and how many bathrooms does one person actually need?
I’ve come to the realization that I couldn’t possibly spend that amount of money at one time, let alone about 100 lifetimes. All I can do is watch football on Sundays and hope they reduce the price of the NFL Season Ticket and that my fantasy football team can win another championship.
That’s all the types of things my mind can handle.
Justin Hotop is an award-winning sports writer for the Republic-Monitor along with being a pure shooter from distance and over all obstacles on the basketball court. He can be reached via email at jhotop@perryvillenews.com.
