Sometimes Evil Pays Off
Almost exactly a year ago I plotted all the NFL owners on a big graph detailing how smart and evil they were. I gave Rams owner Stan Kroenke the “honor” of the top right side, aka very evil but also very smart. I stand by that decision today, as one year later he’s added another trophy to his collection. Congrats to the Denver Nuggets, by the way. Well earned. Jokic rules.
There are several types of owners. There are the self-made businessmen fans like Jerry Jones who made their money and are clearly meddlesome shits with their egos wrapped up in the team they own. There are the failsons. Then, and frankly we are seeing more and more of these ghouls, are the ruthless businessmen who view the teams as assets for their portfolio. Kroenke is probably the model for these guys, and unfortunately…he seems pretty good at this.
Enos Stanley Kroenke owns 9 professional teams. The ones you know: The Los Angeles Rams, the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Nuggets, Arsenal, and Colorado Rapids. The ones you might not know: Arsenal (the women’s team), The Colorado Mammoth (Lacrosse), and two professional game teams for Overwatch and Call of Duty. The Rams won the Super Bowl a season ago. The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup last year as well. The Nuggets just claimed their first-ever championship. Last year his Lacrosse team also won the championship. Enos Stanley Kroenke is in some ways the platonic ideal of the evil businessman owner. It brings me no joy to say this after what he did to St. Louis, but the man is smart.
He seems to have the right ideas of properly investing in the right people and getting out of the way, something the more ego-team driven owners have a tendency to screw up. He’s also very good at spending his money to make the teams a big deal. SoFi is a sports palace. I was actually surprised the Rams had a bad report card earlier this year, so I guess he’s also very good at getting results while skimping out on things. Dan Snyder in shambles.
I hate watching this ghoul succeed but if you are a fan of one of his teams and not from St. Louis, chances are you’ve had a reason to be happy lately.
Shame about Arsenal last season *snrk*
Oh wow another Arsenal title challenge melted away in the spring? How shocking…
To comment on the bad report card from the NFLPA rankings, Kronke just purchased a hugeeeee piece of land in the heart of the San Fernando Valley to build a massive new facility for the Rams. They currently are based at a D3 college in Thousand Oaks, in a very temporary facility. If you look at the 2 seasons of Hard Knocks they’ve been featured on, it doesn’t look or feel like an NFL facility should. I feel like that has much more to do with the low rankings (notice the Chargers are near bottom too, they too are in a temp facility after relocating) than Kronke isn’t willing to spend on certain things.
And we have a lacrosse reference! Honestly, Dave, if you have ESPN+ then watch some PLL. It’s more entertaining than the spring football leagues, and the world games are the June as well. I just want to see more lacrosse comics tbh.
You failed to mention he was able to do all of this because he married Ann Walton of the Walmart family. She’s the owner (on paper) of the Avalanche and Nuggets to circumvent NFL rules of him owning teams outside the market of his NFL franchise.
So the Rams and the Broncos are now in-laws?
I wanted Jimmy Butler to finish his Dirk run.
So do I.