Nuggets Owner Stan Kroenke on Verge of Historic Title Trifecta
(UPDATE, June 13, 2023: The Nuggets beat the Heat in Game 5 on Monday, June 12 to win the NBA Finals, giving Kroenke the NFL season championship for 2021, the NHL title for 2022 and the NBA crown in 2023.)
Stan Kroenke has long long avoided talking to the media, resulting in his “Silent Stan” nickname, but the real estate mogul keeps popping up on camera at the biggest events in U.S. sports.
More from Sportico.com
Nuggets' Nikola Jokic Rewriting Record Book in NBA Finals: Data Viz
Manchester City Scores Treble With Win in Champions League Final
NBA Finals Feature League's Next-Gen Owners in Kroenke, Arison
That’s because his teams can’t stop winning.
Kroenke has accumulated the most valuable portfolio of assets across team sports, and his clubs are on an unprecedented hot streak. In February 2022, the Los Angeles Rams won Super Bowl LVI; four months later, the Colorado Avalanche captured the Stanley Cup. Top that off with a title won by the National Lacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth last spring, and Arsenal’s runner-up finish in the just completed English Premier League season, and it’s already been quite a run.
Now, Kroenke’s Denver Nuggets are one series away from adding his third different big four sports league championship in 16 months. Denver will face the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, which tip off Thursday, and the Nuggets are -400 favorites to win the franchise’s first league title, according to BetMGM.
“Stan is an overnight ownership success story that was 30 years in the making,” longtime NFL consultant Marc Ganis said in a phone interview. “There is a lot to be said for persistence, perseverance and patience.”
Kroenke, 75, bought his first stake in a sports team in 1995—a minority interest in the Rams that helped Georgia Frontiere move the team from Los Angeles to St. Louis. In 2000, he added the Nuggets, Avalanche and their arena—Pepsi Center, since renamed Ball Arena—to his roster for $450 million. A decade later, Kroenke exercised his right to buy the 60% of the Rams he didn’t already own in a deal that valued the team at $750 million.
He also added soccer teams to his roster: He bought MLS’ Colorado Rapids in 2004, and shortly after he started buying shares in the EPL’s Arsenal, becoming the sole owner in 2018. Kroenke also took a swing at MLB ownership when the Dodgers were up for sale in 2012, but Guggenheim Baseball Management emerged as the winning bidder.
Kroenke’s sports team assets are worth a combined $12.9 billion.
Kroenke was a pioneer in the multi-team ownership model across leagues that has gathered steam in recent years, as David Blitzer, Josh Harris, Jimmy Haslam, John Henry and others have expanded their team assets. The NFL long prohibited its owners from also owning franchises in other leagues, but eased the restriction for teams in the same market when Florida Panthers owner Wayne Huizenga bought the Dolphins in 1994. Kroenke got around that rule when he purchased the Rams by transferring control of the Nuggets and Avalanche to his wife.
The NFL dropped the cross-ownership rule for good in 2018, after a lukewarm sale process for the Carolina Panthers; hedge fund manager David Tepper paid $2.28 billion for the team, an amount some deemed disappointing.
Owners have previously won titles in multiple major sports leagues, and Kroenke was not even the first to win them in the same year when the Avalanche matched the Rams in 2022. (Technically, the Rams are the 2021 NFL season champs, even though their winning Super Bowl was in '22.) The late Bill Davidson, who once owned the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Pistons, won both NHL and NBA championships in 2004. But championships in three major sports leagues would be unprecedented.
Kroenke’s net worth is $14.9 billion, according to Bloomberg, ranking third in both the NBA and NFL among the richest owners—Steve Ballmer ($115 billion) leads the NBA, and Rob Walton ($65 billion) tops the NFL. Kroenke, who is married to Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke, made his original fortune in real estate. He has implemented his real estate expertise in sports, most noticeably with the $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium and surrounding Hollywood Park development.
Kroenke’s sports ownership hasn’t always been the grand slam it is now; success has followed a string of disappointments in many cases. The Avalanche were a juggernaut when Kroenke took over, but the team missed the playoffs six times in a stretch of seven years before its current streak of six straight postseason appearances. The Nuggets won only two playoff series between 1995 and 2018. The Rams had 13 straight non-winning seasons before the 2017 season. Arsenal failed to qualify for the past six UEFA Champions League tournaments.
Yet, Kroenke’s patience is evident in the coaching tenures of his franchises. Michael Malone (hired by the Nuggets in 2015), Sean McVay (hired by the Rams in 2017) and Jared Bednar (hired by the Avalanche in 2016) all rank among the six longest tenured coaches in their respective leagues.
Ganis says the perception that Kroenke cares more about his real estate empire than his sports teams is wrong. “He’s actually a very passionate sports fan," Ganis said, "but he’s old school where he doesn’t show his emotions to everyone."
Best of Sportico.com
