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Historians will be able to pinpoint the end of the Nineties Colorado Economic Boom. It occurred on Jan. 4, 1997, when the Denver Broncos lost a playoff game at the end of a season when it appeared that they were bound for a Superbowl victory.
The economic impacts were immediate, though difficult to quantify because so many affected enterprises were privately held and did not issue public reports.
I can tell you we took a gigantic bath on AFC
Championship T-shirts,
said one NFL-licensed sporting
goods merchant. We had thousands of them printed. We
figured they'd move faster than sniffles at a pre-school.
The shirts cost about $3.50 apiece to produce, and we
planned to sell them for $18.95. Maybe we can get a tax
break if we donate them to a shelter, except even winos and
junkies don't want to be seen in a Bronco shirt.
The overnight collapse in T-shirts, jackets, hats and similar orange-and-blue foofaraw led to a precipitous drop in retail sales because merchants had been counting on Bronco paraphernalia to carry them through January.
We used to rely on the National Western Stock Show
for a winter sales surge,
said the president of a
retail chain, but that was back when Denver didn't mind
being a cowtown. We got to be a major-league city, and we
decided we didn't need those rubes and hayseeds any more.
So we're in a real jam now.
Denver's corporate status plummeted after the Bronco
loss. Avarice Magazine, which had ranked Denver second only
to Seattle in its annual list of America's 100 Best
Cities in Which to Pay Low Wages and Tell Your Employees to
Take Their Recompense in Scenery and Lifestyle,
dropped
Denver to 99th place when it issued a revised list on Jan.
8, 1997.
Without the Broncos to distract them during a time of
high heating bills and snarled commutes, many Denver
workers might have time to notice their employment
conditions,
explained J. Forbes Winchester, IV,
magazine publisher.
This could be dangerous, especially if union
organizers realize that people don't have anything better
to do now than listen to their subversive cant about higher
wages. We're advising corporate relocation decision-makers
to stay away from Colorado unless the Rockies make a
serious pennant run this summer and provide a new
distraction.
But until then, Denver ranks just above Camden, N.J., as a corporate site, and below Farmington, N.M. and Sinclair, Wyo. Winchester noted that New York's ratings soared after the Yankees won the World Series in October, and the city is now renowned for clean air, safe streets, helpful clerks and polite drivers.
Denver metro auto sales followed retail sales into the tank after the upset at Mile High Stadium.
While it's not true that John Elway owns every
dealership in the metro area,
explained one industry
analyst, he owns so many of them, and promotes them so
well, that people just associate 'Elway' and 'New
Car.'
The result, the analyst said, is that the new cars
have lost their appeal just as Elway has lost his luster.
This could be a momentary phenomenon, but at the moment,
car sales are down about 85 percent at all dealerships. The
best we can do is hope for one of his famous fourth-quarter
comebacks later this year.
These declines should have hurt the Denver media. People weren't interested in merchandise, even at fire-sale prices, so there wasn't any point in advertising, and that revenue stream looked ready to evaporate.
The TV stations were charging premium rates for the
Mike Shanahan Show and the John Elway Huddle,
said one
advertising executive, and even then there was a long
waiting list. Then the Broncos fell out of the playoffs,
and nobody wants his business name anywhere within an hour
of those turkeys. The media buyers backed out so fast that
they burned rubber.
Similar declines were expected on media buys for sports-talk radio stations, and Denver's two daily newspapers, which had pre-sold millions of dollars in display advertising for special Bronco Play-off Victory editions, denied rumored plans to fire all sports writers and columnists who had predicted a Superbowl trip.
I know, we of all people should know better than to
believe sports writers,
said one editor, but you
kind of get caught up in it.
However, she said it would have little effect on
readership or overall revenues. As long as we've got the
JonBenet Ramsey case, we'll do just fine,
she said.
Denver may have major-league pretensions and all that,
but really, there's nothing like a society-page murder to
pump up the old circulation. In a week or two, everybody
will have forgotten about the Broncos, but this will run
for years -- continuing investigation, maybe a grand jury,
indictments, trials, appeals, sentencing, prison
interviews.
I think we're set for the millennium, anyway, and
maybe longer. You don't need to worry about us.
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