Rams owner Stan Kroenke has agreed to purchase controlling ownership of the Los Angeles Angels from Arte Moreno for a record $4 billion, ending a turbulent 23-year tenure and expanding Kroenke’s sports empire into Major League Baseball ahead of an anticipated early 2027 closing date.
Stan Kroenke Adds Major League Baseball to Sprawling Sports Empire
Stan Kroenke is crossing county lines and stepping into the batter’s box. The owner of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams has reached a deal to purchase controlling ownership of the Los Angeles Angels from Arte Moreno, bringing a Major League Baseball franchise into an expansive conglomerate that already features the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, the MLS’s Colorado Rapids, and Premier League club Arsenal.
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment announced the agreement, with the transaction expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending Major League Baseball approval and customary closing conditions. The Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the price tag was an MLB record $4 billion, a shade more than the $3.9 billion the Padres recently went for.
Stan Kroenke stated in a release that the Angels are a storied franchise anchored in a great market, adding that they look forward to an exciting future with the Angels organization.
Arte Moreno Concludes a 23-Year Run Marked by Early Success and Later Struggles
An outdoor advertising magnate from Arizona, Moreno purchased the franchise from the Walt Disney Company in 2003, making history as Major League Baseball’s first Latino majority owner. The early years of his tenure delivered sustained success, anchored largely by the roster that secured the 2002 World Series title. The Halos claimed five AL West titles across a six-season span from 2004 to 2009.
However, those glory years gave way to a prolonged period of decline. The Angels have not won a playoff game since 2009, compiling the longest active losing and non-playoff streaks in the majors, including entering September at 53-85 and headed toward an 11th consecutive losing season and 12th consecutive non-playoff season. Despite fielding generational talents such as three-time AL MVP Mike Trout—who has reached the postseason just once in his 16-year career—alongside two-time AL MVP Shohei Ohtani for six straight seasons with no success, the team’s fortunes waned amid a series of high-profile acquisitions like Anthony Rendon, Gary Matthews Jr., Josh Hamilton, and a landmark $240 million free-agent contract for Albert Pujols that produced a fraction of their anticipated impact.
Arte Moreno said in a statement released by the Rams that the Angels Organization was pleased to announce this transaction with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, noting that the Moreno Family had been honored to steward the Angels for 23 years and believed that with KSE’s experience and success they were the best next owner for the franchise, while adding that the Angels Organization looked forward to continuing its commitment to the fans, their employees, the players, and their business partners.
With Moreno’s children reportedly not interested in carrying on in the baseball business, and amid persistent fan chants of “Sell the team!” and derision of Moreno by name at Angel Stadium, the sale brings down the curtain on a polarizing era marked by off-the-field troubles such as the drug-related death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
Southern California Expansion and the Path Forward Under KSE
The acquisition cements a massive regional footprint for Kroenke, whose holdings already span from the 300-acre Hollywood Park campus and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood—set to host their second Super Bowl in five years in February—to 52 acres of land on an old mall site in Woodland Hills where he moved the Rams practice facility and is currently under construction on a Rams village for fans similar to what the Dallas Cowboys have built in Frisco, Texas. Adding the Angels connects a year-round sports and entertainment presence stretching from Woodland Hills to Inglewood down into Orange County.
For a fan base that has spent 11 consecutive Octobers watching the postseason from home, the arrival of an ownership group whose teams—the Rams, the Avalanche, the Nuggets, and Arsenal—have all won championships in their respective leagues over the past five years offers a stark contrast in organizational momentum. As the transaction moves toward its early 2027 closing date, the primary question remaining for the organization is how KSE will address a team that finished last in the AL West each of the last two years under an 80-year-old owner who repeatedly inserted himself into personnel decisions and was roundly criticized for skimping on infrastructure, resources, and support staff.
