By Peyton Manning speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona, in January 2017. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Peyton Manning spent 18 seasons as an NFL quarterback, and he has spent the years since turning a famous name into a set of business ventures. The best known is Omaha Productions, a media company he co-founded in 2020. It takes its name from the audible he called at the line of scrimmage.
His Colorado ties run deeper than most retired players’ ties to any one state. He played for the Denver Broncos from 2012 through 2015, and he never really left.
A pizza deal in Colorado
Manning signed with the Broncos on March 20, 2012, a five-year, $96 million contract, after the Indianapolis Colts released him following a season lost to neck surgery. Seven months later, on Oct. 26, 2012, he bought 21 Papa John’s Pizza stores. All of them were in Colorado. He sold his shares in the stores in February 2018, two years after he retired.
The purchase was an early sign of how he intended to use his name once the playing days ended. The Broncos reached two Super Bowls during his four seasons, and his career ended with a win in Super Bowl 50. He was the first starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl with more than one franchise.
Building Omaha Productions
Manning co-founded Omaha Productions in 2020 with Jamie Horowitz. The company took over production of Peyton’s Places, a football documentary series that debuted on ESPN+ in 2019 and that Manning hosts. Its best-known project came the next year. ManningCast, an alternate telecast of ESPN’s Monday Night Football hosted by Manning and his brother Eli, debuted Sept. 13, 2021, on ESPN2 and ESPN+. It won Sports Emmys for outstanding live series in 2022 and 2024.
ESPN announced the original deal on July 19, 2021, covering 10 games a season for three years. It was extended through the 2024 season in February 2022 and later stretched through 2034. Omaha also holds a first-look arrangement with ESPN for sports content.
The company has since moved well past football broadcasts. It produces the Netflix series Quarterback, Receiver and Starting 5, and it made Chad Powers for Hulu, its first scripted series. In April 2025, it announced a first-look deal with 20th Television for scripted series.
The money followed. In May 2023, an investment from The North Road Company valued Omaha at $400 million. In March 2025, Patrick Whitesell and Silver Lake bought a minority stake in a deal that valued the company at more than $800 million.
Teaching, giving and local ownership
Manning’s other work is wide-ranging. He and his family live in Denver. The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame inducted him in its class of 2018. On June 3, 2025, he joined the ownership group of Denver Summit FC, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League. He has also said he is interested in someday owning a piece of the Broncos.
He joined the University of Tennessee, where he played college football, as a professor in the College of Communication and Information in 2023. In 2025, he gave $4 million to the college. He also helps run the Manning Passing Academy, a five-day football camp operated by his father, Archie, and his brothers Eli and Cooper.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021. Denver retired his No. 18 and added him to its Ring of Fame; the induction was on Oct. 31, 2021.
Away from the studio and the camp, Manning has stayed in public view. He hosted Saturday Night Live on March 24, 2007, hosted the 2017 ESPY Awards, and voiced a character in the animated film Ferdinand. In 2025, he had a supporting role in the film Is This Thing On?.
The business he built after football draws on the same recognition that carried him through two decades in the NFL, and a good share of it runs through Denver, where he has lived since his Broncos days.
Sources: Wikipedia entries on Peyton Manning and Omaha Productions.
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