Colorado Gov. Challenges DeSantis to Rare Non-Lame Political Sports Bet: If Denver Nuggets Win NBA Title, I Get Disney World

AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File

Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) took a swipe at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) ongoing battle with the Walt Disney Company this week, proposing a sports bet that could result in the storied company bringing Disney World to the Rocky Mountains.

Polis tweeted on Tuesday, “Calling @GovRonDeSantis and @Disney on a friendly wager. If the @nuggets win the finals against the @MiamiHEAT, Disney World will move to Colorado, the ACTUAL happiest place on earth to do business, have fun, and be free! #ColoradoForAll.”

Typically, political sports bets are benign wagers which involve governors agreeing to fly the other team’s flag or having to wear the rival state’s jersey for a day. Polis, while not stipulating what would happen if he lost, set his sights much higher. While Polis certainly was just teasing DeSantis — as moving Disney World would be a near impossible undertaking — this was not the first time Polis made a play for Disney to bring its business to his state.

In April of 2022, when DeSantis was ramping up his campaign to punish Disney for opposing a bill that critics have labeled as discriminatory against the LGBTQ community, Polis tweeted:

Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away. In CO, we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like @Disney or @Twitter. Hey @Disney we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and @twitter we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are

Polis’s tweet included a clip of DeSantis claiming his government was “gonna be looking at ways the state of Florida potentially can be holding these Twitter board of directors accountable for breaching their fiduciary duty.” DeSantis was reacting to the Twitter board blocking Elon Musk’s takeover bid, which eventually went through.

A few days prior, after DeSantis had announced his plan to use the Florida legislature to strip Disney of its special tax district, Polis also vowed, “We will grant Mickey and Minnie full asylum in Colorado.”

Before entering politics, Polis was a successful businessman amassing a large fortune during the early days of the internet, and as a member of Congress was the only Democrat to join the House’s libertarian Liberty Caucus. Polis, the first openly gay man elected to statewide office in the U.S., won reelection by a wide margin in 2022 and has been discussed as a potential future presidential candidate for the Democrats – although he has publicly stated he has no interest in the job.