Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Kelly Martin
It would certainly be nice to have Stan Kroenke’s money.
The St. Louis Rams multi-billionaire owner made a news splash Thursday with the leaking of the news that one of his holding companies had purchased 60 prime acres of Los Angeles real estate at a site eerily resembling a place one might build a football stadium. The trading value of St. Louis Rams futures took a nosedive.
But the most amazing part of the story arrived today with the Rams’ official statement on the subject, attributed to Kevin Demoff, executive vice president for operations:
"As real estate developers, the Kroenke Organizations are involved in numerous real estate deals across the country and North America. While we can confirm media reports that we recently purchased land in Inglewood, as a private company we don't typically discuss our plans for commercial or residential investments.
"We have yet to decide what we are going to do with the property but we will look at all options, as we do with all of our properties."
OK, I added the emphasis there. How wonderful it must be to have the capability to purchase 60 across of prime L.A. real estate without having thought much about what to do with it. I guess Kroenke landed at Los Angeles International Airport one day on his way home to his estate in Malibu and just happened to see the land was available near the airport, phoned his holding company, and made an impulse buy.
It turns out that the land was owned by Wal-Mart, with which Kroenke has more than a passing familiarity. Perhaps he received a friends-and-family discount. Still, the land in Inglewood, Calif. between the old L.A. Forum and Hollywood Racetrack probably set him back such a tidy sum that he might want to assign someone to start thinking about what to do with it fairly soon.
Combine that with the fact that Kroenke is one of precious few NFL owners who are free agents—with no lease restriction after the 2014 season here—and the facts that his Rams are near the bottom in NFL revenues and franchise values, play in an outdated stadium to the second-smallest crowds in the league, and reside in a city that continues to suffer a loss of large corporate headquarters (upon which an NFL team relies for nourishment), and this is not the brightest day for St. Louis Rams fans.
I could throw in that Kroenke might be able to add $100 million or more annually to his bottom line and double the value of his NFL property in the process by moving to L.A., but that would be what football people call piling on.
So forget about all of that. Let’s just say he made a little land deal on the West Coast that is no matter to us here.
Stay confident, St. Louis. If anyone asks, “we have yet to decide what to do about the Rams, but we will look at all our options, as we do with all our properties.”
Commentary by Ray Hartmann
