The most expensive real estate in Denver is developer Stan Kroenke’s parking spots, with rents of about $5,000 per minute.
That’s what NBA rookie Christian Braun of the Denver Nuggets found out when he parked his vehicle in three of Kroenke’s owner spots at Ball Arena for a few minutes, Braun said during the Rock Chalk Unplugged podcast.
That indiscretion — side-parking in the three owner spots of Kroenke, who owns the Nuggets — earned Braun, a rookie, a $15,000 fine.
“So I come in and I’m about to get dressed, I look down and there’s a piece of paper on my chair. I see there’s a $15,000 fine,” Braun told the podcast. “And I’m like, $15,000? I haven’t gotten a paycheck, what do you mean $15,000?”
Braun questioned the fine to Morgan Montgomery, the team’s operations coordinator, who told Braun that the fine was real and that he had to pay the full amount.
After a somewhat heated exchange, Montgomery was able to reduce the fine to $2,500, which still works out to about $833 a minute for parking in the boss’s spot.
“Not a single person was at the arena,” Braun said. “They caught me on camera, looked up whose car it was and [fined me].”
Braun told the podcast hosts he wasn’t thrilled with paying a $2,500 fine, which came directly out of his first paycheck, but it was far better than $15,000.
Kroenke, a billionaire who also owns the Los Angeles Rams and Arsenal Football Club, has extensive real estate holdings, including The Village outdoor shopping mall in Woodland Hills, which he bought late last year for $325 million.
Braun, though he was the 21st pick in the 2022 NBA draft out of Kansas University, has considerably fewer assets. He averaged 4.7 points and 2.4 rebounds per game for the Nuggets, who just defeated the Phoenix Suns 4-2 in the Western Conference semifinals.
— Ted Glanzer