In 2022, Jim Saccomano entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a first ballot Award of Excellence selection. That was the inaugural year for Award of Excellence membership in the Hall, and Saccomano joined four others in the first public relations
class to be recognized by the Hall. Most recently, he was named to the Award of Excellence selection committee for public relations to help choose future honorees.
Now in his fifth full decade as the voice and memory of the Denver Broncos, he officially retired following the 2013 season after a 36-year career with the team, and 2026 marks his thirteenth year working as the Broncos historian and public relations consultant. Thus, Saccomano is now in his sixth decade (partial and full, 1978-2026) proudly working with the team. The 2026 season marks his 52nd in Denver professional sports.
He spent 1978-2013 in his fulltime role with the Broncos, his last 12 as Vice President of Public Relations/Corporate Communications. Saccomano spent 31 total years directly supervising all team public relations efforts. He was Vice President of
Public Relations for eight years prior to assuming his most recent title, and before becoming a Vice President Saccomano was Senior Director from 1997-2001.
He created the use of the fourth quarter comeback statistics, in conjunction with the career of future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, and also was the first NFL PR director to make weekly use of the now commonplace “red zone,” field position and other miscellaneous statistics, dating back to the 1981 season.
His current unofficial role with the Broncos as a PR consultant and unofficial team historian has its focus on his historical and institutional knowledge of the Broncos and NFL.
The 2025 season was his 51st overall year in Denver pro sports, including three in baseball with the iconic Denver Bears franchise before joining the Broncos.
Saccomano accomplished the astounding feat of seeing 1,000 pro football games
in person in the 2022 season, with game number 999 at Kansas City against the Chiefs and game number 1,000 at home against the Los Angeles Chargers. That total includes American Football League and National Football League games, home and road,
postseason and preseason, as well as Super Bowls and American Bowl games overseas.
He has been active in various social media forums for the team, including a team podcast, and 2024 marked his 12th season doing a weekly pro football television show on KUSA, channel 9 (the four-time Emmy-nominated “ Broncos Sideline Stories with Jim Saccomano”), and he continues to have availability with management in all public relations matters. His Sideline Stories
show was the longest tenured non-coach’s show in team TV history.
He serves on the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame selection committee and for ten years wrote weekly columns called “Sacco Sez” and “Way Back When” for the team’s very popular web site, which has averaged over two million hits per week throughout the year. The main focus was to tie historical events and personalities to the current NFL.
The seven Super Bowl appearances by the Broncos with Saccomano are tied for the most in which any NFL PR director ever has participated for one team. The Broncos have had 21 of their overall 23 playoff wins during his tenure, with those 21 victories ranking second all-time among all NFL PR directors.
Seven hundred twenty seven players suited up for the Broncos during his tenure with the club (more than two-thirds of the 1,000-plus Bronco players all-time, through the 2013 season).
During the period when the wiring of players and coaches by NFL Films became prominent, the Broncos led all NFL teams in wirings in the 1980’s and 1990’s (“by far,” according to NFL Films Wirings Coordinator Bob Smith).
The longest tenured pro sports administrator in Colorado sports history, Saccomano received numerous regional and national honors during that lengthy career.
The press box at Sports Authority Field at Mile High was officially named the “Jim Saccomano Press Box” during the 2013 season. The University of Colorado also honored him in 2013 with a presentation of the prestigious “C’ letter during halftime of the University of Southern California game.
The Denver Broncos public relations staff has been honored as recipient of the Pete Rozelle Award for the 1990, 2013 and 2015 seasons by the Professional Football Writers of America (PFWA). These were the first, 25th and 26th Rozelle Awards given and a total of three for the Broncos.
In 1990 Saccomano and his staff were honored as the first recipients of the Rozelle Award. The award is named for Rozelle, NFL commissioner from 1960-89, and is given to the NFL club PR staff that consistently strives for excellence in its dealings and relationships with the media.
The Broncos’ PR department is one of 14 to win the prestigious award, and the only one of just two to win it three times with the same club. Saccomano is the only PR person to be a three time recipient, with each season a Super Bowl year, and under three different head coaches (Dan Reeves, John Fox and Gary Kubiak).
In his four decades with the Broncos he coordinated all of the Broncos public relations efforts locally, nationally, and internationally, and in this capacity worked on Super Bowls XXI, XXII, XIV, XLVIII, and the World Championship Super Bowls XXXII, XXXIII and 50 (the only Super Bowl officially not identified by Roman numerals, in recognition of it being the 50 th).
In addition to his seven Bronco Super Bowls, he was asked to work for the National Football League’s public relations staff at 21 additional Super Bowls, and for 14 of those games was designated by the league as co-captain of the NFL’s elite Super Bowl PR staff supervising the National Media Center.
During that period, he directed an unequaled volume of national and international exposure for the Broncos, who made over 300 national TV appearances in his career. In his time with the team Saccomano represented the Broncos around a large portion of the world, as Denver played the NFL’s most international games in the most varied locales, including London (twice), Tokyo (twice), Barcelona, Berlin, Mexico City and Sydney.
He has been honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Denver Athletic Club and by the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, and in 2010 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Sons of Italy fraternal organization, as well as being named to the Colorado Italian-American Hall of Fame (selected by Andiamo! Newspaper and the Italian American Business Association of Greater Denver) that same year.
In 1986 he was named to the annual “Best Dressed Men in Pro Football” list chosen and published by Pam Stanton of The Football News.
He worked very closely with NFL Films in the production of all team-related videos used in TV shows, movie theaters, speaking engagements, and public service announcements, and still consults with NFL Films on historical features.
Saccomano has authored six books, three editions of Game of My Life: Denver Broncos, and two of Denver Broncos: The Complete Illustrated History , as well as the most recent Peyton Manning: A Quarterback for the Ages. He currently is working on a book on NFL public relations (PR Man!), combining his career experiences and PR philosophies of the past four decades.
Named as the American Football Conference PR Director for the 1989 Pro Bowl Game in Honolulu, he was chosen to fill that role in 1987 and 1988 as well but could not work the games due to Bronco Super Bowl commitments. In 1998 he was named winner of the Charlie Callahan Award for Public Relations from The Football News.
He has represented the Broncos on various boards, including the executive boards of the National Football Foundation/Colorado Chapter and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, serving on the latter for over 40 years.
Saccomano has served as chairman of numerous NFL PR committees as well as the AFC Western Division PR directors committee and also belongs to the Football Writers Association of America. He has chaired the NFL’s media relations and international committees and has served on the league’s postseason, radio-television, and special projects committees as well.
In his tenure with the Broncos, Denver has had one of the NFL’s highest number of players to receive honors from press associations, including several who have been named as national award winners. Twelve of his players, along with team owner Pat
Bowlen, are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was an integral member of the committee which selected the Broncos all-time
Top 100 team in 2019, in celebration of the NFL’s 100th season.
A Denver native and honors graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver (B.A., 1970), he also has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado (1977). Saccomano has been Chairman of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, on which he served for 43 years, and has served on the Colorado Press Association Foundation Board, as well as on the Denver Chamber of Commerce Metro Sports Committee. He is a member of the National Football Foundation/Colorado Chapter, and serves as a voter for the College Football Hall of Fame as well.
Saccomano was named as Metropolitan State College (now University) of Denver’s Alumnus of the Year for 1983.
Prior to joining the Broncos in 1978, he worked for three years as Director of Public Relations for the legendary Denver Bears baseball team, which won the Triple-A American Association championship in 1977 (his first ring). A huge fan of the New York Yankees, Jim and his wife JoAnn have seen the Yankees play in every American and National League city, and on September 17, 2022 he was honored by throwing out the first pitch prior to the Yankees-Brewers game in Milwaukee.
Saccomano is proud to be a Vietnam Era veteran of the United States Army (1970-72).
Prior to working in professional sports, his five-decade career began with four years in Denver broadcasting as a sports reporter and talk show host, hosting one of the first sports talk shows in the nation, as well as the iconic “Dial a Score” show on Saturday afternoons of the football season.
Jim and his wife JoAnn have two children, Jennifer and Jeffrey, as well as a grandson, Lucas, and a granddaughter, Rhea.