Stan Kroenke, the billionaire sports magnate who owns the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and England’s Arsenal FC, has quietly ascended to the top of America’s private landownership rankings, controlling more than 2.7 million acres following a blockbuster off-market acquisition in December, according to The Land Report.
The deal saw Kroenke purchase over 937,000 acres of ranchland in New Mexico from the heirs of Teledyne founder Henry Singleton, marking the largest single private land transaction in the U.S. in more than a decade, according to The Land Report’s 2026 ranking of the nation’s 100 largest landowners.
The noncontiguous parcels, focused on cattle and horse operations, vaulted Kroenke from fourth place into the No. 1 spot, surpassing the Emmerson family’s 2.44 million acres of timberland through Sierra Pacific Industries, Liberty Media’s John Malone at 2.2 million acres, and former CNN owner Ted Turner’s 2 million acres, Fox Business reports.
Kroenke, who built his fortune in real estate development before expanding into professional sports, has assembled his sprawling portfolio – primarily ranching and grazing land – across the American West and into Canada over decades.
Key holdings include the 560,000-acre Q Creek Ranch in Wyoming, the historic 535,000-acre Waggoner Ranch in Texas, Montana’s Broken O Ranch, Nevada’s Winecup Gamble Ranch, and British Columbia’s Douglas Lake Ranch, according to The Land Report.
How staggering is Kroenke’s total land holdings?
Well, it now exceeds the size of Yellowstone National Park and equates to roughly 2 million football fields, according to Fox Business.
Notably, Microsoft co-founder and one-time Epstein pal Bill Gates remains the largest private owner of dedicated farmland, with approximately 275,000 acres of productive agricultural land across multiple states—far smaller in overall scale but notable amid rising interest in our food supply.
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