Stan Kroenke

[choudman]

Hi guy's I'm here today to ask you a question about the owner of our beloved team's (me being a Arsenal fan). Quick bit about me, I'm a die hard 21 year old Irish Arsenal fan who is extremely disillusioned about this man and the way he is running my club.

Just here today to get your feeling's about this man and how do you feel he is running the Rams? One thing I have noticed about his acquisitions of his multiple club's is that they tend to do shit (excuse my language) after his take over's albeit the Rams winning a Super Bowl under him and the Colorado Rapids winning a MLS league/championship load of bollix. Since this man has taken over Arsenal we have not won one trophy and if you do not know they recent history of Arsenal we went from being one of the of best side's in Europe (going a full 38 game season unbeaten was the highlight) to falling into mediocrity.

It is becoming a rather unfortunate trend in British football of one man owing a football club, whereas i know in America it has been the norm since professional sports began that the club was run by a owner when the trend in Britain and Europe has been that the club was run and owned by fan's and all profits were reinvested back into the club.

Anyway back to my original question what is the feeling about this man in Saint Louis and if you know Colorado ( as he owns the Rapids, Nuggets, Avalanche and Mammoths) as he is despised over here by the vast majority of Arsenal fans as we see him as a individual who has zero passion or love for the club and is just here for the $$$ as Arsenal are the fourth most expensive football club in the would being valued at $1.3 Bn. Look forward to heading your views on silent Stan (never goes to Arsenal matches or will take press conferences about the 'running' of my the true love in my life THE ARSENAL!!)

Looking forward to hearing from some of you guy's.

Cheers, Joe

 

[Lunchbox]

Since nobody else has responded yet I'll give it a shot.

My opinion of Stan is that he has taken a team in the Rams that was in shambles when he took over full ownership and given Ram's fans reason for hope this season and for the future of the franchise.

Stan's ownership style is to hire knowledgable people to run his sports franchises and keep a low profile himself. He is willing to invest the money to put a good product on the field.

With the Rams he is following a blueprint for success based on the structure of the New England Patriots who have been a perennial playoff contender for the last decade plus. It appears to me that he has hired excellent leadership for our team and last year we were able to take the first step toward becoming a perennial playoff contender ourselves.

If the Arsenal's record is not what you've been hoping for or used to seeing in the past I believe that Stan is the type of owner that will look into the reasons why and attempt to address the problems. Don't be surprised to see changes to the Arsenal organization if the lack of success continues.

 

[den-the-coach]

Hey Joe I believe I can extrapolate somewhat on Enos Stanley "Stan" Kroenke, however, you will have to excuse my lack of knowledge on Arsenal and European football in general because I have just never figgured out how 2-0 is a blowout and why you don't score more often...As I digress. :ww:

As to the Hockey Colorado Avalanche they did win the cup in his first year, but have not been a factor lately and the Nuggets seem to be always in post season, however, I can post I am never concerned about them. I guess you can post that from an owner standpoint, Kroenke runs sports as a business and tries to hire the right people and allow them to do their job.

He has hired high profile coaches in George Karl of the Nuggets and Jeff Fisher of the Rams. He also has never taken the cheap way out and I can post from a Ram perspective that we love him for that, but you're correct he is not a man that has won many championships, but there have been some great owners over the years that have come up short in that area as well.

For example many feel Mark Cuban of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks most feel is a great owner, however, only one title to show for it. So IMO Kroenke will always carry the moniker of "Silent Stan" but my question to you is has he hired the right people to run Arsenal? Because if not, then going forward the franchise might struggle because he usually gives his people time to win, so the question to you Joe, who is running Arsenal at this point and what do fans think of that person?

It is most of our believe that Stan has always wanted to own an NFL franchise and that is the "crème de la crème" of ownership with all due respect to soccer and maybe just maybe if he is successful in one sport, it will trickle to the others, but he's never going to be a hands on owner for better or for worse.

 

[choudman]

Hi den-the-coach.

In relation to your question has he hired the right staff, we have had the same manager (head coach) since 1996 a French man called Arsene Wenger who has been the clubs's most successful manager since the modern era began anyway, one of the best youth academy's in Europe (as you may know there is no draft in football, players are singed at ages as young as 10 and put into the clubs youth academy's) and a solid coaching staff, this is not where the problem lays.

Partially before Stan took over and defiantly since Stan has took over we have become a selling club, ever summer we seem to sell our best player's to the highest bidder and replace them with mediocre player's. To put it in American Football terms and as I am a Packers fan (Don't get pissed off at me) it would be like them trading Rodgers for Mark Sanchez and Clay Matthews for Quincy Black and this pattern happening year on year.

Another one of Stan's major problems is how f*cking expensive it is to got to a Arsenal match, we have the highest ticket prices in Britain and we haven't won any silverware in 8 year's (Might not sound like a lot to an American but we compete in 4 major competitions every year)

And finally the one that really annoys fan's is the simple fact that we have £100+ million sitting in the club accounts that won't be spent on players to improve this former giant of Europe and get us challenging for major competitions.

P.S on a global scale the real "crème de la crème" of club ownership's and it pains me to say this is Manchester United (Owned by Malcolm Glazer the Bucs owner) with their almost 700 million worldwide fan's.

 

[albefree69]

I'll just add to what the other guys have said (which I mostly agree with) by looking at it from the same perspective as den did.

A great NFL owner needs four qualities to be great:
Recognizing talent when it comes to GMs and coaches
No interference when it comes to letting them do their job.
Know when to hold them and when to fold them when it comes to keeping or firing coaches.
Willingness to spend what's needed.

Stan gets an A+ in all four as an NFL owner.

The attribute in blue flies against what you just said about how he's handling your team so I don't understand it.

 

[-X-]

Are you sure it's not Wenger who's being a penny pincher and not Kroenke?

And so what if he doesn't go to games? The Glazers don't go to United games either. His "hands-off" approach is something that you should be embracing, by the way. His model is to hire professionals to do a professional job and make changes only when it's necessary to do so. That approach essentially eliminates him as a part of the problem. If it's going downhill, you can pretty much point to Ivan and your manager. Maybe your manager has to change. Longevity in a sport doesn't mean anything if you're unable or unwilling to adapt to the way the sport (and its players) are evolving. Sometimes you can get stagnant at a position if you're there too long. Maybe that's your issue. The guy charged with managing the money, and not so much the guy doling it out.

 

[ArsenalFc]

Hi,

I am also an Arsenal fan and just want to address some issues posted here.

I have no issue with Stan being silent at all, he has people to answer things for him, I have the issue with those people not being honest with the fans. We appreciate Stan not sacking our manager as well, it's been a tough time for Arsenal.

The OP says we've had £100M in the bank, which is about $160M. This is not true. As a club we've gone through a transitional period where big money has been coming into football, we're talking crazy money here in the last 8 years. But before this as a club we had hardly any revenue coming in through our resources such as a having only a 38,000 seater stadium. So we invested in a 60,000 seater stadium which cost the club around £400M est. To build this we had to secure very very bad deals. Eg. A kit deal with Nike and a sponsorship with the airline Fly Emirates. We had to secure these deals for a certain amount of years, I think 7 years, so we could get a bank loan. Obviously they needed to know we'd be getting the money in.

Here is the bad part, since we got those deals money in our sport has exploded, hence the deals we've had for the last few years have been terrible. Teams around us securing much much better deals. On top of that wages increased, transfer fees increased and the big arab money came in. It also doesn't help that we went into a double-dip recession.

This meant our financial situation was in trouble. Our finances are released and show money in the bank, but this money is only made from us selling our best players every season. Stan is blamed for this and not spending the money but I think people forget we need money to run the club for the year before the next results are released.

This season the bad deals are over, we just signed all new deals which will help the loan for the stadium which we are still paying off. This summer we DO have money. It's a big big summer, we need to improve the squad or we will struggle and completely drop off as a big club. What has given me promise is your posts, it sounds like you don't think Stan will let that happen? It is said he that he won't invest money, it sounds like you disagree. I hope so, we are hoping we spend money. (Our highest transfer fee is just above £15M, the average fee for big clubs nowadays is £30M. The highest fee ever is £80M.)

The only real issue I have with Stan is the ticket prices. They are very very expensive, I think a very small drop in prices would go a long way to getting the fans on his side more. I think we can afford that and deserve that.

Sorry for the long post, just some things I thought should be addressed.

To finish off, United fans hate the Glazer's so that is bad a comparison to say they are the best or model owners.

 

[RamFan503]

Just from what I have witnessed with the Rams, I'd say Stan is one of the best owners in the NFL. Time will tell but so far he has brought about an exciting change from the Frontiere (sp?) years.

Also, just as an aside, when George Karl was having medical issues, Stan apparently paid a good share of his medical bills and retained Karl at his full salary while he was unable to coach. I believe the Nuggets have been in the playoffs every year since he took over the team.

 

[RamsSince1969]

Stan Kroenke, for the Rams, is possibly the best owner we have had in 30 years. I'm sorry your team across the pond is not doing as well as the Rams with their recent mind blowing turnaround. Just my humble opinion that he spends money on players, coaches and public relations like nobody we have seen. Stan has embraced the Rams like a rich uncle coming out of nowhere to save the children's hospital from shutting down due to lack of funds and saving the kids from being thrown into the orphanage. That's how it feels to me. Like some old black and white movie with a happy ending.

 

[Thordaddy]

My take, there are investments and passions,if I'm evaluating Stan I expect he has both priorities.
We as Rams fans are fortunate that the two blend so well for him when it comes to the NFL.
I have seen some of Stan's properties in Columbia that he isn't renovating until he has a renter,IOW his soccer team may be more frugal because he's not going to throw his purse fully at something that doesn't hold his heart.
Sam is Missouri born and bread, his children could have gone to any school in the world but went to Mizzou. He calls Columbia,MO home.
I have always thrown this point out in discussions about LA relocation,IMO the ONLY reasons Stan doesn't just give in to the CVC or whatever acronym they go by are that he wants the club to be fiscally sound so as to not harm his remaining partners ROI and to make St.Louis a first class football town in every way.

I'd say Stan might protest a little at my evaluation, but his heart isn't JUST vested in money,he's a fan too ,and we ALL know how lucrative OUR investment in the Rams is.

 

[LesBaker]

Hi,

I am also an Arsenal fan and just want to address some issues posted here.

I have no issue with Stan being silent at all, he has people to answer things for him, I have the issue with those people not being honest with the fans. We appreciate Stan not sacking our manager as well, it's been a tough time for Arsenal.

The OP says we've had £100M in the bank, which is about $160M. This is not true. As a club we've gone through a transitional period where big money has been coming into football, we're talking crazy money here in the last 8 years. But before this as a club we had hardly any revenue coming in through our resources such as a having only a 38,000 seater stadium. So we invested in a 60,000 seater stadium which cost the club around £400M est. To build this we had to secure very very bad deals. Eg. A kit deal with Nike and a sponsorship with the airline Fly Emirates. We had to secure these deals for a certain amount of years, I think 7 years, so we could get a bank loan. Obviously they needed to know we'd be getting the money in.

Here is the bad part, since we got those deals money in our sport has exploded, hence the deals we've had for the last few years have been terrible. Teams around us securing much much better deals. On top of that wages increased, transfer fees increased and the big arab money came in. It also doesn't help that we went into a double-dip recession.

This meant our financial situation was in trouble. Our finances are released and show money in the bank, but this money is only made from us selling our best players every season. Stan is blamed for this and not spending the money but I think people forget we need money to run the club for the year before the next results are released.

This season the bad deals are over, we just signed all new deals which will help the loan for the stadium which we are still paying off. This summer we DO have money. It's a big big summer, we need to improve the squad or we will struggle and completely drop off as a big club. What has given me promise is your posts, it sounds like you don't think Stan will let that happen? It is said he that he won't invest money, it sounds like you disagree. I hope so, we are hoping we spend money. (Our highest transfer fee is just above £15M, the average fee for big clubs nowadays is £30M. The highest fee ever is £80M.)

The only real issue I have with Stan is the ticket prices. They are very very expensive, I think a very small drop in prices would go a long way to getting the fans on his side more. I think we can afford that and deserve that.

Sorry for the long post, just some things I thought should be addressed.

To finish off, United fans hate the Glazer's so that is bad a comparison to say they are the best or model owners.

Who struck the deals that were not lucrative enough in the first place? Was it SK or a group decision or what?