Rams owner Stan Kroenke now the largest private landowner in the U.S.
Stan Kroenke of the Los Angeles Rams stands on the sideline during a game against the Philadelphia Eagles at SoFi Stadium Inglewood, California, October 8, 2023.
Ric Tapia | Getty Images Sports | Getty Images
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Stanley Kroenke owns the world’s most valuable sports empire, including the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. According to a newly released report, the sports mogul is now America’s largest private land owner. Land Report.
Kroenke’s 2.7 million acres are larger than Yellowstone National Park (or the equivalent of about 2 million football fields).
Kroenke purchased nearly 1 million acres of New Mexico ranch land in December from the family behind industrial conglomerate Teledyne, according to The Land Report. The Singleton Ranches transaction is the largest land purchase in the U.S. in more than a decade, according to the trade publication. The late Teledyne founder Henry Singleton founded his eponymous farm in the 1980s and it has grown into one of the largest cattle and horse breeding operations in the country.
The purchase catapulted Kroenke from fourth to first in The Land Report’s annual ranking of the nation’s 100 largest private landowners, beating out the Emmerson timber family as well as billionaire media moguls John Malone and Ted Turner.
Most of the top 100 landowners are not boldface names like Kroenke. The second-ranked Emmerson family owns an estimated 2.44 million acres through its forest products company Sierra Pacific Industries. The Singleton family, who sold their New Mexico ranch to Kroenke, still ranked 98th with 171,000 acres.
But investing in U.S. farmland has become popular among the ultra-rich as a hedge against inflation and stock market volatility. According to the report, from 2019 to 2024, agricultural land increased by an average of 5.8 percent annually, that is, 2 percent after inflation. US Department of Agriculture.
Billionaire entrepreneurs from Bill Gates to Philip Anschutz are buying up more and more land for agriculture, livestock and forestry. With 275,000 acres, Gates ranks 44th overall on The Land Report list, but is specifically the largest private owner of U.S. farmland. It is owned by investment group Cascade Investment. Gates’ farmland grows soybeans, corn, cotton, rice and even potatoes McDonald’s chips.
Online brokerage billionaire Thomas Peterffy and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also made the cut, with 647,000 acres and 462,000 acres, respectively.
Kroenke was able to expand his holdings relatively quickly by purchasing huge farms that had been in families for decades, even generations. It purchased one of its largest ranches, Wagoner Ranch in North Texas, for $725 million in 2016, ending 160 years of family ownership. While these one-of-a-kind farms are in short supply, more are coming on the market as heirs decide to sell rather than continue the family business.
