A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Stanley Kroenke owns the world’s most valuable sports empire, including the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Now the sports tycoon is also America’s largest private landowner, according to the newly released Land Report.
At 2.7 million acres, Kroenke’s holdings are larger than Yellowstone National Park — or the equivalent of roughly 2 million football fields.
Kroenke bought nearly 1 million acres of New Mexico ranchland in December from the family behind industrial conglomerate Teledyne, per The Land Report. According to the trade publication, the Singleton Ranches transaction is the largest land purchase in the U.S. in more than a decade. Late Teledyne founder Henry Singleton started his namesake ranch in the 1980s, and it’s grown into one of the nation’s largest cattle- and horse-breeding operations.
The acquisition vaulted Kroenke from fourth to first on The Land Report’s annual ranking of the country’s 100 largest private landowners, leapfrogging the Emmerson lumber family as well as billionaire media moguls John Malone and Ted Turner.
