For nearly a century, Colorado’s Monfort family has cashed in on the right idea at the right time and place.

So it is with Coors Field, a publicly funded stadium that became a gold mine for one of the state’s most famous families.

The 30-year-old ballpark at 20th and Blake and its historic neighborhood combined to create a lucrative setting that any sports team owner would covet.

Coors has hosted two All-Star Games, outdoor hockey and multiple concerts. It’s become a prime tourist attraction on perfect summer nights and has drawn more than 84 million baseball fans since opening its gates April 26, 1995.

This is despite being home to a Rockies team that has posted just nine winning seasons and made the playoffs five times in 32 years.

“I think we get an A-plus,” said former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, who took office in 1983, pushed hard to bring Major League Baseball to Denver and lobbied for the LoDo stadium site. “The entire community, from the citizens who supported it to the architects and those who designed it to those who selected the site, everyone involved. It’s an A-plus compared to other fields around the country.”

In many ways, Coors Field is the blueprint for successful pro sports ownership in the 21st century — a franchise profiting from a venue in a vibrant neighborhood that taps into multiple revenue streams and sustains the entire enterprise year-round.The Monforts have prospered by attracting millions to Coors each year and developing real estate adjacent to the ballpark that operates as both a profit driver and a funding mechanism for future stadium improvements and maintenance.

In doing so, they’ve ensured the long-term viability of Coors for years to come — with taxpayers’ help.

The third-oldest ballpark in the National League behind Chicago’s Wrigley Field (opened in 1914) and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (1962), Coors has been well-maintained under primary owner Dick Monfort’s stewardship. While other contemporary stadiums are built, demolished and forgotten, Monfort, whose sons Walker and Sterling play key roles in the organization, can envision the Rockies calling Coors home for many more decades to come.

“That is my hope,” he said. “I said when we signed the lease extension (in 2017) that my hope would be to keep it up and have it be a grand old baseball stadium.”

Stadiums as economic drivers

So, does that make Coors Field a good investment for the taxpayers who funded its construction?

Economists have long maintained that publicly funded stadiums are a poor use of tax money, more apt to shift entertainment dollars from one neighborhood to another than produce economic gains for host cities.

“I have been to LoDo and I think it’s a fantastic area and Coors Field is a great ballpark, but the economic impact is limited,” J.R. Bradbury, a professor of economics, finance and quantitative analysis at Kennesaw State University, said. “A new stadium spreads residents’ dollars around, but it doesn’t necessarily create new dollars.”

Bradbury co-authored a 2023 study that found that between 1970 and 2020, state and local governments devoted $33 billion in public funds to construct major-league sports venues in the United States and Canada.

The study found that the public share of construction costs for sports venues declined from 70% in the 1990s and 2000s to approximately half in the 2010s. Meanwhile, public money has risen, from a median of $168 million per stadium in the 1990s to $350 million in the 2010s and $500 million in the 2020s.

And over the last 50 years, the value of Major League Baseball franchises has soared. One example: The Seattle Pilots sold for $10.8 million in 1970 to future MLB commissioner Bud Selig. In March, Forbes valued that same team (now the Milwaukee Brewers) at $1.6 billion, still below the median worth of an MLB franchise ($2.025 billion).

Peña argues economics isn’t the only consideration when investing public money in a stadium that benefits the owners.

“There are times when taxpayer support for a major economic asset, as well as something that adds to the overall culture and the well-being of a city, is needed,” Peña said. “You can’t measure the happiness that that brings to the community.”

To bring Major League Baseball to Denver, the league required construction of a baseball-only stadium. The Colorado Baseball Partnership’s pitch to voters was simple: The ballpark cost would be “a penny on a purchase of 10 dollars.”

In August 1990, voters in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties approved a 0.1% sales tax to help fund the $215 million ballpark. That provided $168 million, or 78% of the cost. The remaining $48 million came from the original Rockies owners.

Although Denver and Adams County voters rejected the tax, the measure won with strong support from the suburbs.

The original plan was for the Coors Field bonds to be paid off in 20 years, but a healthy economy and lower interest rates meant debt was paid off in just under 10 years.

Since then, multiple baseball stadiums built around the same time have been replaced. In Texas, the Rangers opened The Ballpark in Arlington in 1994, only to leave it for a retractable dome 25 years later. The Atlanta Braves moved into Turner Field in 1997 and were gone in less than 20 years. The Chicago White Sox want to build a new home on the city’s South Side using $1 billion in taxpayer dollars after moving into what is now Guaranteed Rate Field in 1991.

But Coors Field endures.

“I’m extremely proud of that and proud of all of those who have made this ballpark what it is, kept it relevant and kept it a place to be after all of these years, despite the wins and losses,” said Kevin Kahn, the Rockies’ longtime vice president of baseball operations.