Stan Kroenke: The history of the wealthy son-in-law turning over

The Nuggets won the first championship in team history. The most outstanding protagonist is not only FMVP Jokic, who has always avoided the camera, but also the team's big boss Stan Kroenke.

The winning speech was crazy about the ears of female journalists. This is his fifth league championship in the past year and a half. It was previously the Rams' Super Bowl Championship (2022), the Mammoth's National Bag Crop League Championship (2022& is second this year), the Avalanche's Stanley Cup Championship (2022) and the Los Angeles Guerrillas' Call of Duty League Championship (2022).

For many years, the billionaire has acted far less prominently than Jokic, but with the Nuggets reaching the top and his success in the past year (sports assets increase by $3 billion), Kroenke is destined to be one of the most discussed figures in the world sports scene in 2023.

When Kroenke's life story comes out of a small village with only 23 people in Missouri, a sports overlord worth $13 billion, and his history of making a fortune is still full of mystery. Kroenke's life story is somewhat surreal.

Because his father runs a timber business, he has had to do odd jobs since he was a child and is also responsible for managing the books. Grandpa and father are both big fans of baseball, but he has a special liking for basketball. He played in the high school team and once played 30 points in a single game. But since then, he found that he didn't like the feeling of being paid attention, such as when he was on the court, he wouldn't be able to control his legs and perform abnormally.

He himself almost never accepts media interviews, and the public's understanding of his early life was extremely limited. A big reason may be that he is very sensitive to his marriage problems. In 1974, Kroenke married Ann Walton, the female heir of Walmart Group, and only became a fortune after becoming a wealthy son-in-law.

Ann Walton and Kroenke

But Kroenke hated being told that he was talking about relying on his wife and father-in-law. He always emphasized that he started from scratch and tried his best to downplay the changes in his life by marrying into Walmart: "When I first dated her, her father (James Walton) and her uncle (Sam Walton) had a very small retail business. They were both very hard-working fighters and later achieved great achievements, but they were really not considered to be at that time."

We can only talk about this with data. Kroenke and his wife met in 1971. Walmart was listed that year, and it was in a period of rapid expansion, with an annual turnover of US$78 million. By the second year of his marriage, the group's turnover was US$340 million.

Before meeting his wife, Kroenke did show his business acumen. In college, he borrowed thousands of dollars from his father to run a clothing store with others. The money he earned was said to be enough to support his tuition and living expenses. He made a small profit when he sold the store, so he met his wife in a ski resort in Colorado.

But there is no doubt that Kroenke can become a rising real estate tycoon in the 1970s and 1980s basically rely on the capital of Walmart Group. The big project he started was to develop shopping malls and Walmart supermarkets. In 1975, the second year of his marriage, Kroenke gave up the opportunity to continue his PhD and began to receive guidance from his Walton family's commercial real estate development partner Raul Waters. He started the road very quickly, and the two teamed up to develop more than 20 commercial projects, spread throughout the Midwest of the United States. But in 1985, Kroenke and Waters had a serious conflict over equity distribution, and then went to court and fought for several years.

By the 1990s, he worked with a St. Louis real estate developer and friend, and his business grew bigger and bigger. Although the two ended up leaving unhappily, returning to his hometown Missouri gave him the opportunity to show his skills in the sports world.

In 1993, the NFL decided to expand, and St. Louis, the second largest city in Missouri (and the only independent city), became one of the candidates. Kroenke contacted later NFL president Roger Goodell and filed a bid at the last minute, but failed.

But just two years later, he helped St. Louis run an NFL team, that is the Los Angeles Rams.

At that time, the Rams owner was an NFL woman named Frantier. Due to dissatisfaction with the conditions of Los Angeles at home, she hit it off with Kroenke and moved the Rams to St. Louis by allowing Kroenke to invest $80 million (30% of the shares). In 1999, the Rams won the Super Bowl, and Kroenke also established his own sports operation company KSE in this year and began to build his own sports empire.

When young, Kroenke often hunted with his father-in-law and Sam Walton, listened to their entrepreneurial history, and absorbed business knowledge and experience like a sponge. Like the Walton family, Kroenke's own entrepreneurial history is also the story of an American tycoon who cooks fire. Now he is indeed confident that he does not rely on his father-in-law, because his net worth has doubled in the past five years, far exceeding his wife and any Walmart heirs.

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From the Nuggets' champion, you may not be able to figure out too much clues, because Kroenke himself almost never interferes in the team's daily operations. But the ups and downs of the Rams and Arsenal teams can definitely show Kroenke's business skills to the fullest.

What a heroic feat to bring the NFL team to their hometown, but in the end, Kroenke betrayed St. Louis without hesitation and betrayed his own name (his big name Ennos and middle name Stanley are all taken from the St. Louis Cardinals' legend).

No one knows when Kroenke started planning to move the Rams back to Los Angeles, at least he had not acted rashly before the death of his boss Frantier. Frantier died in 2008, and two years later he bought the Rams with full capital (on the way backed the offer from Pakistani American businessman Scheid Khan, who is currently the owner of Fulham Football Club).

At that time, there were rumors in St. Louis that he was going to relocate, and he repeatedly promised fans, "I grew up in Missouri and always been a Missouri. Everyone knows that I am trustworthy and I will keep my promise... I will do my best to keep the Rams here."

But at the same time, he began to look for legal loopholes. For example, the terms of the Rams signing a 30-year lease with the home stadium include maintaining advanced venue conditions. As long as he finds ways to reject the renovation plan of St. Louis (even if it is close to $1 billion), he can win the arbitration lawsuit, modify the lease agreement, and loosen the conditions for future relocating teams.

In 2014, he spent more than $100 million to buy land in Los Angeles, which once again caused St. Louis to be alert. Old friend Goodell helped him cover and said Kroenke's move had nothing to do with the NFL business. By 2015, Kroenke finally made a big project in Los Angeles and claimed that the St. Louis market is no longer suitable for ram operations. He listed many economic data that are not conducive to St. Louis, but multiple media verified it, even if these data are not made out of nothing, they are extremely misleading. The fans of Rams resisted the NFL of course were willing to try their best to promote the Rams to return to Los Angeles, and passed the decision in early 2016 with a 30-2 vote. At this point, Kroenke became a public enemy of St. Louis, and the local city government also sued him and the NFL in court, and finally won the case and received $790 million in compensation, one-third of which would be borne by other NFL bosses.

The angry St. Louisian bought an advertisement in the 2016 Super Bowl and scolded Kroenke, "Stan, isn't it enough for you to have $8 billion? We just want to say that the law is on your side, you are rich and willful, but that doesn't mean that what you do is justice."

At that time, Kroenke's sports empire had begun to take off. He deeply rooted in Colorado, acquired teams and developed stadium projects in parallel, and built a TV network and ticketing company, monopolizing all the business chains of his own team.

Speaking of his TV station, fans outside Colorado may not know that in the past three years, most locals have not seen the regular seasons of teams such as the Nuggets and Avalanches on TV, because Kroenke's "Plateau TV" monopolizes the broadcasting rights and has not been able to negotiate a broadcasting agreement with cable TV networks such as Comcast. There is also a petition to put pressure on Comcast online

Although the miserable one is definitely not as good as the St. Louis fans, the Nuggets have been stabbed by their boss. After they entered the Western Conference Finals in 2009, they discovered that Kroenke Jr. (the family manager in charge of team operations) had rented his home court to WWE to earn extra money. He never thought that his team could go so far in the playoffs.

For this reason, WWE President McMahon madly mocked Kroenke, and performed a good show in the game that was forced to change to Los Angeles.

McMahon said that Kroenke was not worthy of applauding the boss, but in fact, the love of fans for the team is obviously very different from the "love" of the boss for the team. In this regard, Arsenal fans should be the group with the deepest understanding.

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Until now, no one can prove that Kroenke has loved football. It is said that the first time he noticed the Premier League was when he went to Hong Kong to discuss business, and found that local newspapers and magazines reported on this league very professionally and thoroughly, and instantly felt the global development potential of the sport.

When Premier League CEO Scudmore announced that it was "unstoppable" to become a global capital game, Kroenke seized the excellent opportunity to become one of the first American bosses to enter European football. In 2007, the British branch of Kroenke KSE Group acquired 9.9% of Arsenal's shares, which immediately attracted the vigilance of Peter Hill-Wood.

"You can say that I am an old antique, but we just don't need Kroenke's money, nor do we want shareholders like him. Our goal is to keep Arsenal British. I don't know if he will launch a hostile acquisition of our club, but we will definitely boycott it," the Arsenal chairman said. "Americans only have money in their eyes. They know nothing about our football. We don't need such people to participate in club management."

Kroenke does want to take over more equity, but he is not in a hurry and does not want to add fuel to the fire and anger these old British money and trigger a cultural war. His approach is to first public relations with Arsenal fans trust this institution, which is basically no different from government lobbying: to move it with emotion and reason, and make the other party trust his attention to Arsenal's long-term interests (it is fact that he has never sold any sports equity he holds to the outside world). He also invited relevant officials of the agency to visit Denver and entertained delicious food and drinks, so that the British could see what the sports empire he runs looked like.

In addition to the former Russian richest man Usmanov continued to buy equity (it could really be done to buy one share today and two shares tomorrow), he bought the Arsenal board of directors in a panic. In order to maintain the background of the UK, they did not want Usmanov to hold 25% of the shares, and Kroenke naturally became an appropriate check and balance piece.

In the descriptions of some Arsenal fans, this seems to be a Faust-like cautionary fable, where the sinner Dane betrayed himself and Arsenal's soul to the devil. By 2011, Kroenke really acquired shares in Fesman and Braswell, and it was too late for Arsenal Fan Trust to oppose it again.

In 2018, Kroenke completely incorporated Arsenal into its sports empire and became a "subsidiary". Arsenal Fan Trust wrote in a statement full of grief and anger: "After Stan Kroenke privatized the club, fans will no longer own shares, nor will they continue to protect the club's operating values... Kroenke's behavior will completely disintegrate the fans' voices and participation. This is actually legal theft to relieve the equity holders of the supervision of Arsenal's operations."

Arsenal fans shouted to let Kroenke get out of the club

Unfortunately, these accusations are too weak and far away, and it is difficult to resonate in the market outside the UK.. A Russian oligarch left and an Uncle Sam (perhaps Sam's son-in-law is more appropriate). Is there really a difference for Arsenal fans who have been taken away? From the greed of wanting to play gold and dollar football at the beginning, to the later Kroenke took the lead in the European Super League, it was also a blessing.

For a long time, Kroenke was criticized by Arsenal fans for nothing. After the epidemic, he reduced his salary to the team, and then his own assets continued to increase by hundreds of millions of dollars. They were furious, but they didn't know that Americans had long been accustomed to it. This seems contradictory, but it conforms to the actual economic operation rules: no matter how grand the narrative is or how bullish the market is, it has nothing to do with fans or even team employees. This seems to be the powerless reality faced by many individuals in this great era. Looking at the subsequent Brexit from this perspective, it seems easier to understand the simple choices of the people.

It is just for a boss like Kroenke, the rules at the beginning were written for him, and the rules later were written by him. Whether to take off or not, it would not prevent him from continuing to make a big profit. As long as the team wins the championship and the winner is the king, black history can naturally be written off (he was anonymously selected as the worst boss of the league by MLS executives this year).

If a trump card like Jokic does not become Kroenke's ambition, then the free attitude he always maintains towards this business game may be the real wise move.

In comparison, as early as seven or eight years ago, LeBron was Kroenke Jr. When they were on a luxury cruise ship in Kroenke, Kroenke Jr. took out a customized No. 23 Nuggets jersey and recruited him to join. LeBron later complained: "We have a very strong relationship, but I really didn't consider this." There is a reason why LeBron did not consider the Nuggets. Kroenke, who has been engaged in long-term business operations and has not speculated on a coach for seven or eight years, is not the same as him. Michael Malone mentioned the word "organic" more than once, saying that the Kroenke family is "to let nature go"; many people who have dealt with Kroenke also say that he has a unique vision of pursuing "long-term success".

These evaluations are true at all, but there is no subject in the most critical conclusion, which can easily lead to misunderstanding who these "long-term success" belong to.

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(text/kewell)