How Stan built the fortune
Enos Stanley Kroenke started as a real estate developer in Missouri. In the 1980s he founded the Kroenke Group, which built and owned shopping centers and apartment complexes, many of them anchored by Walmart stores in fast growing suburbs and small towns across the Midwest and South. The model was straightforward: secure a strong anchor tenant, develop the surrounding retail space, and hold the properties for long term rental income. Over time the company accumulated a large portfolio of commercial property and land.
He married Ann Walton, a member of the family that founded Walmart, in the 1970s, and her separate inherited fortune is often discussed alongside his. His own wealth, however, was built through property development and later through the rising value of professional sports franchises.
Kroenke moved into sports in the 1990s, buying a minority stake in the St. Louis Rams football team when it moved from Los Angeles. In 2000 he bought the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche and the Pepsi Center arena (now Ball Arena), and later gained full control of the Rams. His most consequential move came in 2016, when he relocated the Rams from St. Louis back to Los Angeles and privately financed SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which opened in 2020. The stadium and the surrounding development greatly increased the value of the franchise and his real estate holdings, and the Rams won the Super Bowl in early 2022.
Companies and holdings
Kroenke Sports and Entertainment is the holding company for most of his sports interests:
- The Los Angeles Rams of the NFL.
- The Denver Nuggets of the NBA and the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL, along with Ball Arena in Denver.
- The Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer.
- Arsenal Football Club in London, fully controlled by Kroenke Sports and Entertainment since 2018.
- Altitude Sports and Entertainment, a regional sports television network.
He is also one of the largest private landowners in the United States. His ranch holdings include the Waggoner Ranch in north Texas, bought in 2016, and the Winecup Gamble Ranch in Nevada, as well as large properties in Montana, Wyoming and British Columbia.
The Inglewood project goes well beyond the stadium. Kroenke's group controls a large surrounding site, Hollywood Park, which is being developed with offices, housing, shops and a performance venue, and the stadium itself hosts concerts, college games and major events, including the Super Bowl in 2022, and is a planned venue for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Its construction cost was widely reported at more than 5 billion dollars, paid without public stadium funding. This mix of land, venues and teams makes his fortune unusually concentrated in hard assets.
Early life and career
Kroenke was born in 1947 in Columbia, Missouri, and grew up in the small town of Mora, where his father ran a lumber business. He worked in the family lumberyard as a boy, keeping the books from an early age. He was named after two baseball players, Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals, a sign of the role sports played in his family.
He studied at the University of Missouri, earning a bachelor's degree in business administration and then an MBA. After graduating he worked in real estate, and in 1983 he set up the Kroenke Group in Columbia, which remains a base for his business operations. He is known as a quiet executive who gives few interviews, a trait that has earned him the nickname Silent Stan among fans.
Philanthropy and public life
Kroenke's public profile is shaped mostly by his teams. The move of the Rams out of St. Louis caused lasting resentment in that city, and the city, county and its stadium authority sued the NFL and Kroenke. The case was settled in 2021, with the league and Kroenke paying a large sum to the St. Louis parties. At Arsenal, supporters have sometimes protested his ownership and called for more investment, although the club has since spent heavily on players.
He and his family support charitable causes in Missouri, Colorado and California, often through the community foundations attached to his teams, which fund youth sports and education programs. Kroenke rarely speaks publicly about his giving, and the scale of his personal philanthropy is not widely reported.