Rams Owner Now the Biggest Private Land Baron in the US

Stan Kroenke is no longer just a big-name sports owner—he now effectively owns a land empire twice the size of Delaware. According to the Land Report, Kroenke has become the largest private landowner in the United States after scooping up 937,000 acres of ranch land in New Mexico last month, the biggest single US land deal since 2011, per the New York Times. The noncontiguous parcels, formerly part of Singleton Ranches, push his total holdings past 2.7 million acres, spread across the American West and into Canada. Bloomberg notes that the land buy catapults Kroenke into the No. 1 spot on the Land Report list of the country's biggest landowners; he was previously fourth.

The publication says it confirmed the sale using public records in four New Mexico counties. Neither side in the deal is talking. Kroenke, a rancher as well as a real estate magnate, already controls roughly 60 million square feet of commercial property, including major sports venues in Inglewood, California, and Denver. He also owns the teams that fill those buildings: the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, lacrosse's Colorado Mammoth, MLS' Colorado Rapids, and the men's and women's teams of the UK's Arsenal. His wife, Ann Walton Kroenke, is an heir to the Walmart fortune.

The New Mexico purchase adds to a string of high-profile ranch acquisitions. Kroenke, who City AM notes is worth about $21.3 billion, bought the 535,000-acre Waggoner Ranch in Texas in 2016, the largest contiguous ranch in that state and one that had remained in the same hands since 1849. He picked up the 124,000-acre Broken O Ranch in Montana in 2012 and Nevada's Winecup Gamble Ranch in 2019 from former Reebok chief Paul Fireman.

Eric O'Keefe, editor of the Land Report, says big money is increasingly flowing into US land, citing its "slow, steady" appreciation. A decade ago, the top 100 private landowners held an average of 378,000 acres each, the publication notes; that figure has since climbed to 430,000 acres.