July 12, 2024
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – After nearly two decades of research and planning, Triple Crown Sports founders Dave and Annette King have announced they’ve executed the finishing steps to transition majority co-ownership shares of TCS to two of their children, Keri King and Kelly (King) Salberg.
Keri King and Kelly Salberg will control approximately 80 percent of the shares in Triple Crown Sports, with Dave and Annette King holding most of the minority portion remaining.
“As I think back to selling T-shirts and running gate, I never would have thought a day like today would have come,” said Salberg, director of Sports Data Analytics at TCS. “I’m very excited and feel very blessed that my parents have such confidence in Keri and I that they think we can continue the legacy they’ve built, one we’ve grown to love as our second home here at Triple Crown Sports.”
“I’m thrilled that it’s Kelly and I, together. At the end of the day, by working together, there will be a better chance for the legacy of Triple Crown to live on,” said Keri King, CEO of Triple Crown Sports. “As Dave and Annette step into a lower threshold of ownership, it’s exciting that Kelly and I get to shape the future investments and lead the culture as managers. We have a lot of exciting things we want to do together that may take 20 or 30 years to materialize. We need a long horizon to do that, and ownership is a great way to pull that off.”
“The principles of moving ownership were more difficult that the principles of moving management,” Dave King said. “It takes time to get that solved – why do we own together? Why do we pass ownership, is there a compelling reason? And how it will be owned is really the premise here. I hope the clarity and simplicity of the mission – we build events that rock – stays front and center.
“I felt far enough along with them that we were at a significant moment in time. The company was definitely bigger than me and Annette together, and I feel comfortable that the collective of Keri and Kelly will be the answer to the Triple Crown family. I’ve been working on this since 2007, that’s 17 years now, and interestingly, it took us 17 years to break even.”
About Triple Crown Sports
Based in Fort Collins, CO., Triple Crown Sports has been producing youth, high school and college events for more than 40 years. TCS runs both the preseason and postseason WNIT basketball events and produces the men’s and women’s DI Cancun Challenge tournaments in November. Triple Crown is also powering a “WNIT” concept event in D-I volleyball (NIVC), with that event debuting in 2017. Triple Crown’s PV College Challenge features more than 10 of the top D-I college softball teams in the country each year in Puerto Vallarta, MX. Anchored by the 1,100-team Colorado 4th of July event, TCS fastpitch tournaments draw the nation’s finest club programs, and hundreds of college coaches attend TCS events for recruiting purposes. TCS produces one of the largest youth baseball events in the world with the 700-team Omaha SlumpBuster during the College World Series. The Triple Crown Volleyball NIT has become the top-recruited club volleyball event in the country each February when 575 teams compete in Kansas City, MO.
