Stan Kroenke just won the Premier League with Arsenal — and for a man worth $22.2 billion who has barely said a word in public for two decades, his sports portfolio is doing all the talking.
Arsenal's first top-flight title in 22 years is the latest addition to a remarkable run across Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The Denver Nuggets won the NBA title in 2023. The Colorado Avalanche lifted the Stanley Cup in 2022. The Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl that same year. The Colorado Rapids won the MLS Cup in 2010. At some point, the word "coincidence" stops applying.
Sports business writer Joe Pompliano put it plainly on X: Kroenke "is on a generational run right now." Hard to argue.
The Arsenal relationship has been anything but smooth
Arsenal fans have spent years making their feelings about Kroenke very clear. A protest outside the Emirates in 2019 accused him of treating the club as an "investment vehicle." In 2021, more than 1,000 supporters showed up to a "Kroenke Out" demonstration after he backed the doomed European Super League project.
He became a minority shareholder in 2007, steadily built his stake, then bought out Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov in 2018 in a deal that valued Arsenal at around $2.3 billion. Six years on, the Gunners are champions. Whether fans have warmed to him or simply accepted the situation is a different question — but Premier League title winners don't tend to stay angry at their owners for long.
The timing matters for the betting market too. Arsenal's odds for back-to-back titles will now be worth watching. A club that has just ended a 22-year drought, with a young squad and financial stability, tends to shorten quickly. Whether they can sustain it is the real conversation.
Not everyone is celebrating
For St. Louis, Kroenke remains a different kind of story entirely. He relocated the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016, citing the city's refusal to fund over $700 million in stadium upgrades. St. Louis had already lost the NFL's Cardinals to Arizona in 1988. Losing a second franchise to the same owner hit differently.
Online headlines branded him "The Most Hated Man in Missouri." TV host Andy Cohen gave him a double middle-finger salute on live television. YouTube videos calling him a liar still circulate. As recently as last year, fans at St. Louis Battlehawks UFL games were still wearing anti-Kroenke T-shirts. The Rams went on to win the Super Bowl in 2022 — at the $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium Kroenke built in Inglewood on land he quietly purchased while still publicly discussing St. Louis stadium improvements.
His response to whether he regretted the move: "Well, sure, but it's emotional."
- Arsenal — Premier League champions 2024/25, first title since 2003/04
- Los Angeles Rams — Super Bowl champions 2022
- Colorado Avalanche — Stanley Cup champions 2001, 2022
- Denver Nuggets — NBA champions 2023
- Colorado Rapids — MLS Cup winners 2010
- Colorado Mammoth — NLL champions 2006, 2022
Kroenke is currently the 114th richest person in the world, with a fortune nearly triple what it was in 2021. His wife, Ann Walton Kroenke — daughter of Walmart co-founder Bud Walton — adds another $15 billion to the household. He is also, as of last year, America's largest private landowner, with approximately 2.7 million acres.
"Silent Stan" has spent 20 years saying almost nothing in public. The trophies are speaking for him.
