The Los Angeles Rams have finalized their relocation settlement with St. Louis thanks to considerable financial help from the NFL’s other 31 teams.
NFL owners voted unanimously at the recent league meetings in New York to approve the $820 million settlement, which includes $790 million for St. Louis and another $30 million in legal fees, according to Sports Business Journal.
The league has already spent $220 million – or about $7 million per team – but now Kroenke reportedly owes the NFL $320 million in March and another $283 million over the next five years, according to SBJ.
The good news for Kroenke is that he will be able to recover the second payment over the next three decades because the league has allowed the Rams to retain revenue from home games that would have otherwise been provided to the visiting opponents.
According to Front Office Sports, the deal allows Kroenke and the Rams to leverage his $5 billion investment in SoFi Stadium, where his team and the Chargers both play. The stadium is the NFL’s largest and has already hosted one Super Bowl.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, left, on the field with Rams owner Stan Kroenke in LA
The Rams originated in Cleveland in 1936 before first moving to Los Angeles a decade later. In 1995, the team moved to a new tax payer-funded dome in St. Louis (pictured)
Kroenke, who had been a minority owner of the club, bought it outright in 2010, but the billionaire real estate tycoon moved the Rams back to Los Angeles in 2016 on the promise of another tax payer-funded facility (pictured)
The settlement was originally agreed upon in 2021, nearly five years after the Rams’ 2016 departure from St. Louis. Both Kroenke and the NFL had failed in attempts to have the lawsuit tossed out of court or moved to a new venue, increasing the likelihood that league owners would be forced to reveal sensitive financial information.
Such disclosures could prove disastrous for some NFL team owners, particularly ones who also own EPL teams. Both Kroenke, who owns Arsenal, and the Glazer family, owners of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United, have been slammed by English soccer fans for being overly thrifty.
Meanwhile, Kroenke has enjoyed more success in the NFL, where his Rams won the Super Bowl last season.
The Rams originated in Cleveland in 1936 before first moving to Los Angeles a decade later. In 1995, the team moved to a new tax payer-funded dome in St. Louis. Kroenke, who had been a minority owner of the club, bought it outright in 2010, but the billionaire real estate tycoon moved the Rams back to Los Angeles in 2016 on the promise of another tax payer-funded facility.
Kroenke, a Missouri native who also owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and reigning NHL-champion Colorado Avalanche, has been relentlessly attacked by Arsenal fans over allegations of greed.
Even former players, such as Thierry Henry, have denounced his reign at Emirates Stadium.
‘I do not recognize my club and what happened just now, with them trying to join a league that would have been closed, makes no sense to me,’ Henry told the Telegraph in 2021.
‘They have been running the club like a company, not a football club, and they showed their hand.
‘Maybe it’s a lack of understanding of the core football values and maybe the money was too big of a temptation. But whatever it was, they got it wrong. Badly wrong.
‘I was genuinely shocked like most people and couldn’t believe what was unfolding.
‘I have never talked before, but what happened recently made me realize fans, this is your club. It is your club and I’m an Arsenal fan too.’
Kroenke spent lavishly on the Rams last season while winning the club’s second Super Bowl
A huge fans demonstration against Sam Kroenke, the current owner of Arsenal, takes place in front of the stadium before the Premier League match between Arsenal and Everton at the Emirates Stadium last year
Both Kroenke and the Glazers were among the EPL owners who pushed for a new European Super League last year – a doomed effort that was additionally slammed by fans as another example of billionaires’ greed
Both Kroenke and the Glazers were among the EPL owners who pushed for a new European Super League last year – a doomed effort that was additionally slammed by fans as another example of billionaires’ greed.
One fan pointed out the similarities between Arsenal’s move into a European super league and Kroenke’s decision to move one of his other teams, the Los Angeles Rams, away from its fans in St. Louis in 2015.
Manchester United fans await the start of the march to Old Trafford ahead of their game against Liverpool. Manchester United fans gathered and marched a half mile to Old Trafford during the Premier League game with Liverpool. The fans continue to protest against the Glazer’s ownership of the club
‘In 2015 Kroenke moved the St. Louis Rams away from there (sic) passionate fan base in St. Louis to LA which is 1,826 miles away all because the team would get more revenue in LA,’ wrote the fan of the Rams’ return to Los Angeles. ‘This is the type of people who would run the European Super League who care about the money not the fans.’
Despite his involvement in sports watched by millions Kroenke prefers to avoid the spotlight and has the nickname ‘Silent Stan.’
Away from sport, Kroenke is a major landowner, with nearly 1.4 million acres of ranches across the US and Canada.
Kroenke also owns around 30 million square feet of real estate, with much of it in the form of shopping plazas near Walmart stores.
In 2016, he bought a ranch of 520,000 acres in Texas, worth $727 million, which helped make him one of the top ten landowners in the US.
The next year he was slammed for launching an outdoor sports TV channel in the UK, which scheduled regular blood sports and hunting programs, including the killing of elephants, lions, and other endangered African species.
Buccaneers Co-chairman Joel Glazer and Manchester United Executive Co-chairman Avram Glazer walk off the field together before the regular season game between the New York Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 12, 2017 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa
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