Title Town

Move over Chicago. Step aside New York. Denver is becoming a true city of champions.

One Stanley Cup title, two Super Bowl titles, a host of heroes, new venues for all four major professional teams and more sports bars than one could visit are redefining the Mile High City.

But the best measure of Denver’s success could be the thousands of diehard fans who paint their faces, slap logos on their cars, wear team T-shirts and buy tickets--lots of them.

The sports teams are the No. 1 topic at office watercoolers, one of the best times to shop is during Broncos games and snack foods come in orange and blue during the playoffs.

Sports items lead TV news programs, grab front-page headlines and saturate AM airwaves. After the Super Bowl last Sunday, the three local network affiliates offered live coverage of the Broncos’ arrival and parade, which brought downtown to a standstill.

“It’s unbelievable all the support. It’s just a great sports town,” said John Elway, a future Hall of Famer who led the Broncos to victory over the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl, Denver’s sixth trip to the title game.

Max Muhleman, a Charlotte, N.C.-based sports marketing executive, said Denver has become one of the four or five top U.S. sports cities.

“I would say Denver, in the last 10 years, has probably risen to the very first level when you think of great sports cities, and is probably the most recent addition to the classic East Coast tradition of sports cities,” he said.

Denver professional sports teams date back more than 100 years. Kevin Jenkyns, a Denver native, recalled as a youngster watching the minor league baseball Denver Bears and the original Denver Rockets of the American Basketball Association, who played in an auditorium downtown as spectators sat on folding chairs.

“What I like best about sports is we finally have teams on the national level,” he said.

In 1959, the Broncos became a charter member of the American Football League, winning their first home game before a crowd of 18,372.

The rest is history.

The team has enjoyed sellouts at the 75,000-seat Mile High Stadium since 1970, fueled by popular and talented players from Lyle Alzado and Randy Gradishar to Terrell Davis and Elway.

Broncomania was spawned in the late 1970s when the “Orange Crush” defense helped the team make the Super Bowl for the first time.

Fans went crazy during the team’s early trips to the Super Bowl in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. They painted houses and cars orange and blue. They jumped into vats of orange gelatin to win tickets and one modern-day Lady Godiva rode a horse down a pedestrian mall, wearing only orange and blue paint and a smile.

“The major difference between Denver and San Francisco is that in San Francisco, you were expected to win,” said linebacker Bill Romanowski, who played for the 49ers before joining Denver. “When we win now, it’s really appreciated.”

Other Denver teams have done well, too.

The Colorado Rockies had 203 consecutive sellouts after they began play in 1993. It ended in 1997, and last year’s average attendance was 46,782 a game at the 50,381-seat Coors Field.

This season, they’ve got a new manager, Jim Leyland, along with hopes of making the playoffs after a rough 1998.

The Colorado Avalanche ignited NHL fever in Denver and have sold out the 16,061-seat McNichols Sports Arena 163 straight times, ever since they debuted there on Nov. 9, 1995. They won the Stanley Cup in 1996, prompting a parade and rally that drew hundreds of thousands of fans downtown.

In the NBA, the Nuggets have had a roller-coaster reception since forming in 1976, hitting highs with popular players like Dan “the Horse” Issel and Alex English, and a stunning playoff upset of the Seattle SuperSonics in 1994. The lows came last year when the team went 11-71 before an average crowd of 11,800 in the 17,171-seat arena.

Head coach Mike D’Antoni figures the fan support will return as the team improves, particularly with the addition of Antonio McDyess and All-Star point guard Nick Van Exel.

“The city would get pretty excited if we win 20,” he said.

Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce officials have not researched the economic effect of all four teams, but said Coors Field has helped revitalize the lower downtown area.

Nearby, the $165 million privately financed Pepsi Center will open in the fall for the Avalanche and the Nuggets. The Broncos will have a new $360 million, 76,125-seat stadium in 2001, funded partially with tax revenues.

Steve Meyerhoff, executive editor of The Sporting News, said Denver ranked as the best sports city in the country in his publication’s 1997 list and has grown even stronger.

“In all regards, would I consider Denver a city of champions? Definitely,” he said.

Davis, one of the NFL’s elite running backs, believes times are good and getting better for Denver sports fans.

“It’s great how the fans are so into it,” Davis said. “You know what, the Nuggets are looking good, got Van Exel, got my man McDyess.

“It was a town that didn’t have any championships, and now I think there are going to be more.”