Source: Chief Business Officer Wayne Brant Leaves Colorado Rapids, KSE

COMMERCE CITY – There’s a major shake up in the Colorado Rapids front office. Chief Business Officer Wayne Brant has left the club, sources tell Burgundy Wave. Brant was one of the longest tenured Rapids employees having joined Kroenke Sports & Entertainment in 2007 with KSE buying the club in 2003.

Brant previously served as the Vice President of Marketing and Senior Vice President of Business Operations, getting promoted in 2018. Brant was part of the re-organization and promotions announced in April 2024 that made him CBO. His LinkedIn shows that role starting in January 2022. That contract extension was through the 2026 MLS season. Burgundy Wave understands Brant was not terminated. It’s believed his last day with the organization was December 6.

What Brant accomplished:

Brant was the often forgotten third member of the Rapids Front Office. Everyone knows Club President Pádraig Smith, who’s been the highest level executive at the club since 2018 and the brains behind the first team operations. Smith joined the club in 2014. Brian Crookham joined the Rapids a few months after Brant and has done great work with the academy for over a decade. Brant wasn’t in the public eye as much, doing working without needing or taking credit. On several occasions, I would informally ask him how XYZ was going and he would deflect praise to staff further down the org chart.

That’s not to say that Brant didn’t have an impact. It was just not sporting related. His entire time at the club was on the business side. This included leading the organizing committee for the 2015 MLS All-Star Game on a relatively short timeline, to BW’s understanding. He was one of the key figures that turned the annual 4th of July game into what it is. 4thFEST, the largest public firework show in the state of Colorado. Always one of the biggest home games of the year. The Special Olympics Unified Team. He helped start and grow that. His fingerprints are all over those initiatives.

The highest ranking financial/business executive at the club would be in charge of the first ever Thanksgiving game in league history. As I reported in 2021, Colorado got that game via finishing top of the Western Conference; there was pressure and even some worry from league officials that the Rapids could pull that off. Packed stadium. Amazing atmosphere. A scene that inspired the club’s current primary kit. And the most watched game in league history that was not an MLS Cup at the time. On the production side, nailed it. That day had everything but a win (the one thing Wayne didn’t work on).

The club employs thoughtful and intentional people now more than anytime in my nine years in the press box. Whether it’s the initiative behind the new kit or the 14er cardboard sign for away wins, the people who work at 6000 Victory Way go out of their way to connect everything back to the community and improve the fan’s experience and relationship with the club. Little things that show they care. Doing the best they can with the budget KSE gives them.

Attitude and culture start at the top. That’s Pádraig Smith, Brian Crookham, and Wayne Brant.

It’s easy for supporters to forget about this side of the operation or think of it as one big amorphous group of suits who just do what ownership says. It’s more nuanced than that.

Brant was an advocate for the club within the KSE ecosystem. He was at the front of the initiatives the club looked at implementing after the September 2023 walkout: Burying the hatchet with Commerce City government and trying to do something with the Victory Crossing idea, renovating DSGP to improve the fan and player experience, and yes, replacing the scoreboard. Brant was one of the club officials on Denver’s bid committee to host World Cup games that was unsuccessful. Though most of the rhetoric around that was about the lack of followthrough by government bodies rather than the Rapids.

Wayne was a friendly, professional, and approachable human being in my interactions with him. Even more so when the 2023 season capsized, for what that’s worth.

What his departure means:

On one hand, the timing behind Brant stepping down is amicable to the club. It’s the end of the calendar year. Most business decisions, partnerships, and contracts have already been sorted for 2025. This isn’t like if a General Manager resigned at the start of the offseason and the team had to scramble to find the right replacement who then had to hit the ground running.

The timing in the macro is curious though. What does Brant’s departure mean for the infrastructure projects given there were two years left on his contract?

Seventeen years is a long time to be at one place. Does he need a change of scenery? Did another opportunity come up that he couldn’t say no to? Maybe he wanted to take a break to spend more time with his family?

Are there different ideas on how to go about those projects and he stepped aside to let someone else aligned with ownership go forward with those? Is ownership not moving forward with them in the way Brant wanted? Is he resigning in protest to ownership did or didn’t do?

I hope for everyone’s sake it’s not the last one. One source did suggest Brant became frustrated after KSE informed him there would be no immediate stadium upgrades, projects which he had led previously. Another suggested there was interest in other opportunities within MLS.

Sources tell BW that the club and KSE have partnered with Elevate Sports to lead the search for a new CBO immediately.

The person who is hired will be critical to whatever comes next. Burgundy Wave will follow up with that new hire to see what their ideas are and the timeline for action. Burgundy Wave will cover that story as it develops.

Photo Credit: Colorado Rapids

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