Denver Broncos

Lore & Background

The team began play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL) and joined the NFL as part of the merger in 1970. The Broncos are currently owned by a syndicate headed by former Walmart chairman Rob Walton and current Walmart chairman Greg Penner. Since 2001, the Broncos have played their regular season home games at Empower Field at Mile High; Denver previously played its home games at Mile High Stadium from its inception in 1960 through the 2000 season.

The Broncos were barely competitive during their 10-year run in the AFL and their first three years in the NFL. They did not have a winning season until 1973 and qualified for their first playoffs in 1977, eventually advancing to Super Bowl XII that season. From 1973 to 2016, the Broncos suffered only eleven losing seasons and won 3 Super Bowls, becoming one of the NFL's most successful teams. They have won eight AFC Championships and three Super Bowl championships (XXXII, XXXIII, 50).

The Broncos have nine primary members enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: John Elway, Floyd Little, Shannon Sharpe, Gary Zimmerman, Terrell Davis, Champ Bailey, Steve Atwater, and Randy Gradishar, along with late club owner Pat Bowlen. According to Forbes, the Broncos are valued at $6.8 billion in September 2025 making them the thirteenth most-valuable team in the NFL.

Reader's Guide

The Denver Broncos were founded on August 14, 1959, when minor league baseball owner Bob Howsam was awarded an American Football League (AFL) charter franchise. The Broncos won the first-ever AFL game over the Boston Patriots 13–10, on September 9, 1960. Seven years later on August 5, 1967, they became the first-ever AFL team to defeat an NFL team, with a 13–7 win over the Detroit Lions in a preseason game. However, the Broncos were not successful in the 1960s, winning more than five games only once (7–7, 1962), compiling a record during the ten seasons of the AFL.

Denver came close to losing its franchise in 1965, until a local ownership group took control, and rebuilt the team. The team's first superstar, 'Franchise' Floyd Little, was instrumental in keeping the team in Denver, due to his signing in 1967 as well as his Pro Bowl efforts on and off the field. The Broncos were the only original AFL team that never played in the title game, as well as the only original AFL team never to have a winning season while a member of the AFL during the upstart league's 10-year history.

In 1972, the Broncos hired former Stanford University coach John Ralston as their head coach. In 1973, he was the UPI's AFC Coach of the Year, after Denver achieved its first winning season at 7–5–2. In five seasons with the Broncos, Ralston guided the team to three winning seasons. Though Ralston finished the 1976 season with a 9–5 record, the team, as was the case in Ralston's previous winning seasons, still missed the playoffs.

Following the season, several prominent players publicly voiced their discontent with Ralston, which soon led to his resignation. Red Miller, a long-time assistant coach, was hired and along with the Orange Crush Defense and aging Denver Broncos starting quarterback Craig Morton, took the Broncos to what was then a record-setting 12–2 regular-season record and their first playoff appearance in 1977, and ultimately made their first Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XII, in which they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 27–10.

In 1981, Broncos' owner Gerald Phipps, who had purchased the team in May 1961 from the original owner Bob Howsam, sold the team to Canadian financier Edgar Kaiser Jr.