Rams Owner STAN KROENKE, who is “in the awkward position of rooting against his home state’s efforts to hand him money” as he attempts to relocate the team to Inglewood, Calif., “frequently brings the with-us-or-against-us mentality of sports into his business relationships,” according to a profile by Ira Boudway of BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. Kroenke’s job is to “convince other owners" that St. Louis' bid to keep the team “isn’t viable and can be rejected without setting the wrong precedent.” But charm offensives “aren’t Kroenke’s strength.” In the “old boys’ club that is the NFL,” Chargers Chair DEAN SPANOS, who has a competing plan to relocate his team to Carson in suburban L.A., “carries greater sway.” But Kroenke’s "deep pockets, and the simplicity of his plan, may win the day.” The Inglewood stadium plan also "fits Kroenke’s style.” He “likes to own teams the way he owns strip malls: from the ground up.”
HAMMERING AWAY: Kroenke, “as the NFL learned, specializes in slogs.” For him, “deals are like fence posts.” Longtime business partner JIM GORDON recalls Kroenke saying , “You’ve just got to pound on them. You pound on it, pound on it, pound on it, and then all of a sudden it actually goes down.” Bloomberg estimates that “in this way, Kroenke has built a fortune” worth $5.6B. It “includes 20 million square feet of retail property, more than a million acres of ranchland, a pair of California wineries, and a sports portfolio to rival any in the world.” It is “all separate” from his wife ANN WALTON’s $3.8B inheritance as daughter of the founder of Wal-Mart. When his father-in-law, BUD WALTON, died in ’95, Kroenke “took a seat on the Wal-Mart board.” Royals Owner and former Wal-Mart CEO DAVID GLASS “denies that Kroenke received any favorable treatment as a developer and says real estate wasn’t discussed in front of Kroenke during board meetings.” Glass said, “In fact, because he was Bud’s son-in-law, he got treated worse than the others. We held him to a more demanding standard simply because of who he was.” Glass added that the company “benefited from Kroenke’s skill.” Glass: “He did a lot of the legwork and got us into areas ahead of when we could have gotten into them by ourselves” (BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK, 11/20 issue).
