Stan Kroenke, current owner of the Denver Nuggets & Colorado Avalanche, will need to strike a delicate balance if he hopes to become majority owner of the St Louis Rams.
NFL guidelines prohibit a controlling owner from also owning a majority share of an NBA, NHL or MLB team.
Kroenke’s ownership of the NBA’s Nuggets & NHL’s Avalanche have been preventing Stan from making a move on the remaining 60% of the NFL’s Rams. The current owners of that 60%, brother-sister combo Chip Rosenbloom & Lucia Rodriguez, agreed last year to get out of the Rams business. They even found a buyer in Shahid Khan, a businessman from Illinois in good standing with NFL brass.
But Kroenke and his 40% would not back down.
Stan exercised his option to match Khan’s offer in April, and has since been working to secure the support of NFL officials to become a multi-franchise controlling owner. That hasn’t happened, despite a precedent set in Miami by Wayne Huizenga’s ownership of the Dolphins, Marlins & Panthers since 1994.
So Stan is getting creative.
A carefully worded statement released by Kroenke Sports Enterprises yesterday indicated that the Kroenke “family looks forward to owning the Rams, Nuggets & Avalanche for years to come while being compliant with all stipulations set by the NFL.”
The Denver Post reported that Kroenke’s son, Josh (also VP of Team Development for the Nuggets), would take majority control of the Nuggets. And although that report has not been confirmed, the Kroenkes seem to be trending towards a splitting of sports franchise real estate within the family.
The NBA Board of Governors would need to approve such a transfer, and the NHL would need to approve any ownership movement with the Avalanche. However, Stan & Company may stand a better chance of diversifying their collective ownership by avoiding a special exemption from the NFL.
The NFL’s competition surely won’t mind causing trouble for the biggest league in American sports.
NBA Commissioner David Stern referred to the Kroenkes as a "very smart business and basketball family." So, while the Kroenke Clan has not made a formal request to transfer ownership to 30-year-old Josh, they stand to have little difficulty managing an intra-family sale as an important and well-respected member of the NBA ownership community.
And while the NFL can still stifle any potential sale of available St Louis Rams ownership to Kroenke, he has certainly raised the stakes by showing his willingness to press the issue further. The NFL certainly doesn’t want to deal with a very public dispute over control of the Rams, especially if the matter drags on through the meat of football season.
The Battle of Wills: Stan v League is so far being won by Mr. Kroenke.
Note:
Kroenke has also been increasing his share of the English Premier League’s Arsenal Football Club. Soccer’s entrenchment in English culture is as deep or deeper than American football in the United States, and Stan’s dealings across the pond have drawn even more heated criticism and a more tense situation there. Kroenke is now 0.1% away from being able to make a move towards controlling ownership with his current 29.9%.
None can say that Stan lacks gumption, as he takes on the Powers That Be in the Western World’s two biggest, most profitable sports entities.
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