While there is something about one person owning so many multibillion-dollar sport franchises that feels a little … icky, if someone is going to do it, best it be Stan Kroenke.
Kroenke added the Los Angeles Angels to his collection of teams
Tuesday, Sept. 1, and the sound you heard was Angels fans everywhere rejoicing at being freed from their misery and despair. There might be worse owners in sports than Arte Moreno — we see you, Dee and Jimmy Haslam! — but few have been so inept for such a long period of time.Kroenke is the opposite of that. The man’s teams collect titles like they’re members of a royal family. In the last six years alone, his teams have won:
- The Super Bowl (Los Angeles Rams, 2021)
- An NBA title (Denver Nuggets, 2023)
- A Stanley Cup (Colorado Avalanche, 2022)
- The English Premier League title (Arsenal men, 2026)
- The UEFA Champions League (Arsenal women, 2024)
- NLL lacrosse title (Colorado Mammoth, 2022)
Meanwhile SoFi Stadium, which Kroenke paid for himself, hosted eight World Cup games,
a Super Bowl and a College Football Playoff title game. SoFi also is going to be one of the marquis venues for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Kroenke was one of the first Women’s Super League owners to move his team full-time to an EPL stadium, and the Arsenal women led the WSL in attendance last year. By a wide margin.
So, yeah, just a bit of an upgrade from Moreno.
“We always say you’re only as good as your last game or your last match,” Kroenke’s son Josh told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. “If you’re not finishing at the top in a championship, you’re immediately back to the drawing board trying to figure out how to get there again.”
Money doesn't guarantee success
Kroenke made his own money in real estate before marrying Ann Walton, a member of the family that owns Walmart. His net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, is nearly $27 billion, which means he is easily able to afford all these teams under his Kroenke Sports & Entertainment umbrella.
But having money doesn’t make you a good owner, and success in business does not automatically translate to sports. Angels fans can attest to that. So, too, fans of the Cleveland Browns, New York Jets and Washington Wizards.
Kroenke recognizes this. He finds the best people in their specific sports, hires them and then gets out of the way. If he has to open up the checkbook, he’ll do it. But he’s not going to tell the folks running his teams how to do their jobs. Or try to do them for them.
Kroenke’s not reactionary, either, giving people the time and space to work their way out of problems rather than lurching from one quick fix to the next.
“He is the most long-term thinker I’ve ever been around,” Kevin Demoff, president of team operations for Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, told WSJ. “That comes from his real estate background. You invest in something, you build it and give it time.”
Kroenke wins over fans by winning
Kroenke isn’t perfect. Mention his name around St. Louis, which he abandoned for the richer environs of Los Angeles, and you’re likely to get a torrent of four-letter words. Arsenal fans loathed him initially, viewing Kroenke as an in-over-his-head American interloper and staging a massive protest in 2021 as another lost season came to an end.
You cannot argue with what he’s done, however.
Kroenke is famously private — most of that Wall Street Journal profile was other people talking about him — so his motivations for building his sports portfolio aren’t completely clear. Money, certainly. The better his teams are, the more money they generate.
But unlike so many modern-day owners, who treat owning a team as a status symbol and nothing more, Kroenke seems to understand he is also a public steward. His scorched earth departure from St. Louis aside, Kroenke has operated in a way that ensures the people with deep, emotional connections to his teams, going back generations in some cases, actually have something worth cheering for.
“I don’t think we can do these things without emotion, without a deep belief,” Kroenke told the WSJ.
Kroenke buying the Angels doesn't guarantee them a World Series title. Or even a winning record. But for the first time in a long time, Angels fans have hope, and that alone is worth celebrating.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rejoice, LA Angels fans! Kroenke as good as an owner can get | Opinion
