Kroenke dodges the tough TV questions in front of handpicked media

A week or so ago, I got into my car and “The Drive” was talking something about a Josh Kroenke press conference. What? I immediately got on the phone with the big bosses at the station.

“When is this happening?” I excitedly asked.

“Tomorrow at noon,” they replied.

“Great! And we can go? I will make it work!” I said.

“Well…” they sighed, as they delivered the news that only select members of the Denver media would be allowed to attend.

Of course. We all know the rest of the story about the press conference getting delayed.

Fast forward to today. So there I was, driving down the road listening to The Fan and what do you know, the highly anticipated Josh Kroenke press conference is finally happening. Great, let’s give this thing a listen!

And of course, it played out exactly how I thought it would. Kroenke gave all sorts of great answers on the Tim Connelly situation in front of a handpicked audience. His position on losing Connelly to Minnesota was perfectly defensible.

Then came the questions on the Altitude-Comcast TV dispute. Right off the bat, a disingenuous tone started dripping from Kroenke’s lips.

“We are in an active lawsuit with Comcast, so I need to choose my words a little carefully.”

Stop it. That’s the ultimate copout from a man trying to hide from the fans whom he has robbed of their favorite teams for over three seasons.

First, almost all of the pleadings and transcripts in the case are a matter of public record. Anyone can go on the internet and find them. Both Altitude’s and Comcast’s arguments and positions are literally out there for all to see.

Second, the court hearings are also open to the public. Anyone can attend, as I have.

Third, KSE has actively run campaigns accusing Comcast of all sorts of trespasses against Nuggets and Avs fans, so what exactly does he need to be careful of saying? Is he going to say something so incendiary or confidential that it’s going to blow up the settlement talks that aren’t happening? So right away, I could see Kroenke was going to do his best to dodge or mislead on any answers he gave on the TV deal. Then came the one of the great whoppers of our time.

“We are working to resolve it as fast as we can, I assure you.”

Now I don’t want to call Josh Kroenke a liar, but Josh Kroenke is a liar. First, for those of you that haven’t already seen my legal analysis on this case, here’s a reminder. Way back in the start of this case, the presiding judge dismissed as many claims of Altitude’s as the law would allow and indicated he may very well dismiss the rest at the motions stage. Usually, that would spur some pretty aggressive settlement talks, but not in this case.

In December of last year, with the case languishing, in a fairly rare occurrence, the court, on its own accord, ordered the parties into the federal courthouse downtown to explain what they had done to resolve the case over the course of the past two years. The answer from both sides was nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

To try to spur a resolution, the judge convinced the parties to agree to submit to negotiations before the esteemed magistrate Michael Hegarty. Since that hearing in December, the parties have had exactly one settlement conference with Judge Hegarty. One.

Oh, there is another one scheduled for some time in July. Sound like they are working “as fast as (they) can” to you? Of course not.

At another point in the press conference, Kroenke inferred the reason they weren’t getting a deal done with Comcast was because, “If we signed up for it, it would involve us laying off a lot of employees.” This is Kroenke’s attempt to say Altitude would be crippled under Comcast’s terms. He said this knowing no one in the hand-selected audience would ask him about how that argument is propped up by the rights fees Stan Kroenke charges himself.

If you’ve ever listened to “The Dan Jacobs Show,” I’ve always been pretty hard on the Denver media for its cheerleading and homerism. However, I’m going to go a little easy on them this time. The people in the room were people whose jobs were to cover the Avs and Nuggets. They didn’t necessarily know the ins and outs of the of the Altitude-Comcast TV dispute.

In fact, very few members of the media do. Kroenke and his PR staff did a great job of keeping those that could ask him the tough questions on behalf of the fans were kept out of the room.

There was one question that rattled Kroenke on his carefully choreographed home turf, though. When asked if he understood why fans of the Avs and Nuggets might feel like the step children of the Kroenke sports empire with the teams not having been on TV in years, Kroenke spit out a somewhat stammering response about the Rams winning the Super Bowl and how the the Avs and Nuggets were doing pretty good.

“I’m not sure I understand the context of them feeling left out.”

Imagine that coming from a man booed from his own fan base last year. I’m sure the fans will gladly help him understand the context the next time he steps on the floor at Ball Arena.

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