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Finance

Crypto Enthusiasts Forming DAO to Buy Denver Broncos NFL Team

If the sale goes through, the Broncos would join the Green Bay Packers as the only teams in the 32-team NFL owned by cooperatives.

By Sam Reynolds
AccessTimeIconFeb 21, 2022 at 7:09 a.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:05 p.m. UTC
(Shutterstock)
(Shutterstock)

The U.S. National Football League’s (NFL) Denver Broncos team is for sale, and a DAO might be the next owner.

  • ESPN estimates the team would sell for $4 billion, which is what the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) is aiming to raise.
  • The effort is being led by Sean O’Brien, a 10-year veteran of Cisco Systems’ legal department. O’Brien said the DAO will go live this week.
  • A decentralized autonomous organization is an organizatrion represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members and not influenced by a central government.
  • According to O’Brien, the DAO would also incorporate as a cooperative, and participants in the DAO would have a parallel ownership share of the cooperative.
  • The team has been run by a trust since its owner, Pat Bowlen, died in 2017. The NFL has signaled that it would like a deal closed by the start of the 2022 season.
  • Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers team is owned by a community cooperative, first incorporated in 1923 in a structure similar to what the DAO would use to purchase the Denver Broncos.
  • In 1980, the NFL put in new rules that banned a “decentralized,” community-driven ownership that the Green Bay Packers use (though the team has an exception via a grandfathering clause).
  • Rules state that ownership must be led by a single person that has at least 30% equity in the team, with minor exceptions for a family ownership structure. There is also a limit of 32 owners for one team, and sales need to be approved by the NFL.
  • In Canada, the Canadian Football League has two teams with a community ownership structure: the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
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