Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the world’s most valuable portfolio of sports clubs, including the Los Angeles Rams and London’s Arsenal Football Club, can boast another title. The Colorado real-estate magnate, once dubbed “Silent Stan” for his reticence to talk to the press, is America’s largest private landowner, according to a report published this week by The Land Report. Kroenke owns 2.7 million acres, about as much as 2 million football fields and larger than the sprawling Yosemite National Park.
Rocketing up to the No. 1 spot on the list—up from No. 4 in 2025—Kroenke’s holdings ballooned largely thanks to a purchase of 937,000 acres of ranchland in December from the Singleton family behind industrial conglomerate Teledyne Technologies. It was the largest land purchase in the U.S. in more than a decade.
Kroenke owes the beginnings of his real estate empire to the success of Walmart, and not just because of his marriage (since 1974) to Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke. The sports and real estate magnate made his first fortune by developing shopping centers, many with the big-box retailer as its core attraction.
In the past year, Kroenke leapfrogged fellow billionaires John “the Cable Cowboy” Malone, who ranks No. 2 on the list, and media mogul Ted Turner, who sits at No. 3. The Emmerson family, which operates forest products company Sierra Pacific Industries, owns an estimated 2.4 million acres, much of it timberland. Bill Gates, who owns 275,000 acres of land, ranks 44th. (He uses his property, the majority of which is farmland owned through his investment group Cascade Investment, to grow onions, carrots, and the potatoes used in McDonald’s fries.)
