How Stan Kroenke, Arsenal's billionaire owner, is spending big and becoming sport's most powerful man :

Owns LA Rams, Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Rapids

Moved his NFL franchise, the Rams, from St Louis to Los Angeles

Decision was understandably unpopular in his native Missouri

Since taking over Arsenal in 2012, they have won two FA Cups

Owned the Rams since 2010; their last winning season was in 2003

Seldom speaks publicly and does not seem comfortable in the public eye

Through the tears in a green tarpaulin stretched around a wire fence, a glimpse can be stolen into Stan Kroenke’s grand future.

It is not much to look at. An expanse of dry earth, featureless but for rubble piles, the art deco entrance hall of the old casino and the grandstand of the Hollywood Park race track.

Dozens of bulldozers and dumper trucks are changing the landscape. Sewers are being connected as the site is readied for October when they will dig a bowl 100 feet deep.

In the clear sky another aeroplane roars in to land at Los Angeles International Airport.

Some believe this project and this 298-acre plot, twice the size of Vatican City, has already transformed Stan Kroenke into the most powerful man in the world of sport.

Stan Kroenke moved the Rams from St Louis back to Los Angeles

Kroenke's new Rams stadium in Inglewood is set to open its doors in August 2019

 

Arsenal will touch down in LA on Friday. Usually they tour in the Far East. This time it is North America.

Having played in the MLS All Stars game in San Jose, they travel down the California coast to continue pre-season preparations against Chivas de Guadalajara at the StubHub Center, home to LA Galaxy, in Carson, LA.

Kroenke may turn up to watch. Arsenal can never be sure until the last minute but if there is a chance he can make it, seats and parking spaces will be reserved for him, friends and family.

He owns property at nearby Malibu and much of his attention has been trained here since January when he secured the right to move his NFL franchise, the Rams, from St Louis to Los Angeles.

The stadium he is building in Inglewood, Los Angeles County, promises to be the best in the world. At an estimated $3billion (£2.28bn) it will also be the most expensive.

It is, as they like to say out here, a game-changer; a seismic shift in American sport by Kroenke who has achieved what so many others, among them Magic Johnson and Tom Cruise, failed to accomplish.

Stan had the plan. Not only that. He also had the cash and the cut-throat political mind to win a three-way fight with the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders, who also wanted to move their NFL franchises to LA.

They proposed to share a site in Carson where Arsenal play on Sunday.

It was bitter and controversial but Kroenke won and in September the Rams will start a season in Los Angeles after 21 years away.

For three years, they will hire the crumbling Memorial Coliseum in LA and move to Inglewood in 2019, a return for elite sport to an area near the Forum, where the Lakers used to play basketball and the Kings once played ice hockey.

‘Five years ago, the city of Inglewood was teetering on the verge of cash-flow bankruptcy,’ said Mayor James T Butts, gazing across the streets from his leather chair on the ninth floor of City Hall. 

The Rams will inhabit the historic LA Memorial Coliseum for the next three seasons

The franchise vacated the Edward Jones Dome, their home since 1985

Then the Forum was revived as a concert venue thanks to $100m invested by Madison Square Garden. And then came Kroenke.

‘Football has been gone from this region for over 20 years,’ said Butts. ‘During that time there were 21 proposals to bring NFL teams back to Los Angeles and none was successful.

‘When the Lakers and Kings departed in the late 1990s and the racetrack, which used to draw 38,000-41,000 four to five days a week, dwindled to crowds of a thousand or less, Inglewood lost what made us the City of Champions — which is our logo.

‘It had a detrimental impact on community pride and the image of the city and during those years there was high crime.’

Crime has fallen for five successive years, property prices are soaring and business flooding in.

‘In Inglewood, Stan Kroenke is quite the hero,’ said Butts. ‘Here’s a multi-billionaire who invested in our city and in April he came to my State of the City address with Jerry Jones (owner of Dallas Cowboys) and they explained the project and the investment in the community.

‘He definitely has hero status and on a personal level from the times I met him I knew that, one, he was a man of his word and, two, people don’t realise it but he has a great sense of humour.’

With last season's Offensive Rookie of the Year Todd Gurley (left) and No 1 overall pick Jared Goff, there is hope that the Rams will entertain the famously fickle LA audience

+12

 

Unsurprisingly, this has not been quite so well received in Kroenke’s home state of Missouri, where accusations still fly about how it was allowed to happen.

If Kroenke is the white knight in the City of Angels he is the devil incarnate in St Louis, a city left without an NFL team, little prospect of attracting one and yet with a stadium to pay for.

The Edward Jones Dome was built using public funds in 1995 to house the Rams as they abandoned Los Angeles.

This was Kroenke’s door opening into the world of sports ownership.

Enos Stanley Kroenke was born and raised in Missouri, named after two St Louis Cardinals Hall of Famers (Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial) and had married into Wal-Mart millions by the time he was invited to save the failing bid of a group trying to bring NFL to St Louis in 1993.

Kroenke could not save the bid — instead, the expansion teams went to Jacksonville and Charlotte — but his interest had been caught.

Two years later, when they eventually did move to St Louis, he paid $80m for 40 per cent of the Rams with a guarantee on the rest if it went up for sale. It did in 2010 and he spent $450 on the other 60 per cent.

At the time, Kroenke told the St Louis Post-Dispatch: ‘I’ve been a Missourian for 60 years. People in our state know me. People know I can be trusted. People know I am an honourable guy.’

St Louis still owe $36m on a loan taken out to finance the Dome and will be minus the $500,000 annual rent from the Rams. It is not scheduled to be repaid until 2021.

The Rams' last winning season was in 2003, with head coach Jeff Fisher in charge since 2012

Arsene Wenger guided Arsenal to FA Cup wins in 2014 and 2015; his last title was in 2004

Kroenke, with an estimated personal wealth of $8bn, has no obligation to settle the bill and has shown little appetite to do so.

It did not pass unnoticed, however, when, in February, as soon as the NFL confirmed the move, he bought a 520,000-acre ranch in Texas (an area bigger than LA) which had been on the market at $725m.

Scott Rosner, a sports business professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, divides the sports tycoons into two categories, between ‘win maximisers’ in it for ego or reflected business benefits, and ‘profit maximisers’ in it for the money.

Roman Abramovich and Sheik Mansour would fall into the first group. Kroenke definitely sits in the second category.

‘If you were Stan Kroenke, where would you rather be?’ said Rosner. ‘St Louis, where the market for your sport has historically been average? Or Los Angeles, the second biggest market in the USA with enormous potential for NFL?

‘You go to LA. You’d be a fool not to. Financially, he is going to do very well out of this. If he wins, he’ll do even better but I don’t think that’s his prime motivation.

‘This is all about the money. It was an opportunity long awaiting exploitation. It just needed the right owner with the right plan and political sway in the NFL to accomplish it. Kroenke had everything.

‘He is putting a tremendous amount of skin into this, close to $3bn. It is not for the faint-hearted or the shallow of pocket. He is not faint-hearted and does not have shallow pockets.

‘If it was about sentiment or caring what people in his home state think we would still be calling them the St Louis Rams.

‘Billionaires become billionaires for a reason. I don’t think he’s a bad person but you must have a degree of ruthlessness to become one of the wealthiest men in America. I don’t know how much he cares about being loved. I’m not sure that’s what motivates him. He’s not an attention seeker.’

By his employees, he is viewed as a demanding but fair boss. In the States, he is not the absentee owner he is perceived to be in North London.

Arsenal fans protest against Kroenke, the largest shareholder of the club

It is rare for 'Silent' Stan to speak, let alone attend an Arsenal game

Even so, it is rare for Kroenke to speak publicly. He does not seem comfortable in the public eye but does venture occasionally into the spotlight.

A speaking appearance, earlier this month, at the Variety-Sports Illustrated Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles, will not have changed the popular image many Arsenal fans have of their owner.

‘Rams are playing the Giants in London this season, Arsenal is playing over here and the NBA is playing games in London,’ said Kroenke.

‘The upshot is that sports is so global, and within the last few years, and that’s where I think people are focusing for growth.

‘Arsenal, two years ago, was the most popular what they call football team in Europe, what we call soccer team in China.

‘We’ve been to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and China, touring and playing in the last two years.

‘TV revenue growth in that particular sector for the English Premier League is the fastest growing area we have.

‘LA is so important for the NFL. Some people call it the gateway to South America. Some people certainly call it the gateway to Asia.

‘It’s extremely important if growth is going to occur as most people see it occurring in the coming years. LA is extremely important that way.’

Arsenal's Mohamed Elneny and Joel Campbell train at San Jose State University

Players are asked questions during their tour of the west coast of the US

Confirmation, if needed, that it is about profit and not sporting glory where Kroenke is concerned.

Although, Kroenke added: ‘You have to make it make sense financially but you learn over the years that it’s no fun if you don’t win.’

He would know. In six seasons under his total ownership, the Rams have yet to return a winning season. In the end, the fans turned their backs on him and he barely spoke to them.

Arsenal, in five years since he took control, have won the FA Cup twice.

In April, the LA Rams traded up from 15th for the No 1 draft pick, a quarterback called Jared Goff who has signed a four-year deal worth $27.9m. This was interpreted as a sign of ambition.

Next time Arsenal tour in the USA, they could be back in LA at Kroenke’s new 80,000-seat stadium with its electronic roof beaming messages to those in the sky.

‘He owns the Arsenal, why wouldn’t he bring them here?’ said Mayor Butts. ‘He can do anything he wants.

‘The Super Bowl will be here in 2021, we have a good shot if LA gets the 2024 Olympic Games for being the site for the opening ceremonies. We could end up with basketball here before 2024. The potential is limitless.

‘Now you got it.’