It has been quite a year thus far for billionaire sports team owner Stan Kroenke.
His Colorado Avalanche captured the Stanley Cup in six games Sunday night over the Lightning at Tampa’s Amalie Arena, winning 2-1 to claim their first championship since 2001. The victory comes only months after his Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl, making Kroenke the first sports team owner to win a Super Bowl and another major pro sports title in any given calendar year.
Toss in a recent National Lacrosse League title from his Colorado Mammoth—the team’s second—and Kroenke is experiencing unprecedented levels of success.
To be sure, the Rams and Avalanche under Kroenke have won their respective championships before—the Rams in 2000 when he was co-owner in St. Louis, and the Avalanche in 2001 not long after he bought the franchise–but never in the same year.
The Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals on their home turf of SoFi Stadium this past February 6, 23-20, in a nail-biter that came down to the final drive.
“Wow, that was an ending fitting of Hollywood,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said as he handed the Vince Lombardi trophy to Kroenke.
That kind of trophy presentation didn’t happen as the Avalanche ended Tampa Bay’s two-season run of Stanley Cups .
That’s not NHL tradition.
In the NFL, NBA and MLB, the commissioners hand off the various championship trophies first to the franchise owner. But in the NHL, the commissioner—currently Gary Bettman—hands the Cup to the winning team’s captain—in this case, Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog. (Last night’s duties were fulfilled by deputy commissioner Bill Daly as Bettman remained in league Covid protocol.)
The late Bill Davidson, who once owned both the Lightning and Detroit Pistons, won NHL and NBA championships in the same year, 2004.
But Kroenke’s sports empire is second to none. In Denver, Kroenke owns the Avalanche, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the recently renamed Ball Arena where both teams play. In L.A., he owns the Rams and SoFi Stadium, which cost $5 billion to construct, including the retail and housing complexes still growing around it.
“You can’t undershoot Los Angeles,” Kevin Demoff, the club’s longtime chief operating officer, said. “Not just building a terrific NFL stadium, but one that would truly fit in with the architectural design of Los Angeles.”
The three U.S.-based major pro franchises alone are worth $7.33 billion–the Rams at $4.68 billion, the Nuggets at $1.87 billion and the Avalanche at $775 million, according to Sportico’s franchise valuations.
That’s nowhere close to a complete list of his sports holdings.
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment is the holding company for European soccer clubs Arsenal F.C. of the Premier League and Arsenal W.F.C. of the Women’s Super League, among others, including the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer, which won the MLS Cup in 2010.
Kroenke’s overall sports assets are worth nearly $11 billion, according to Sportico calculations.
Kroenke’s decision to move the Rams back to L.A. from St. Louis has ultimately turned out well for him, but it was costly. He paid a $550 million transfer fee to the NFL, and late last year, Kroenke and the league agreed to a $790 million settlement with St. Louis for vacating that city.
The move has turned out great for the Rams, who were valued at $1.45 billion in 2014, their last season in St. Louis.
Kroenke purchased what was then called Denver’s Pepsi Center, opened in 1999 at the cost of $187 million—$316 million in today’s dollars. In Los Angeles, he had this vision of a new stadium, which is just east of the airport, LAX.
“It has to be iconic. And when people fly in this has to be the first thing people know and love about our city,” Demoff said.
The Rams won it all this year in front of their home crowd in Kroenke’s stadium. Now, Kroenke has another Stanley Cup to add to his most recent Super Bowl victory.