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Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke has just set up takeover opportunity in America
Stan Kroenke commands the second-most valuable sports empire in the world, but Arsenal are the odd ones out in his investment portfolio.
✱He owns eight sports franchises in total, including NFL outfit the Los Angeles Rams, NBA side the Denver Nuggets, and Colorado Avalanche from the NHL to complete the set from America’s major leagues.
But Arsenal🍨 are his only outpost this side of the Atlantic, where there has historically been a radically different approach to sports governance and investment.
In Kroenke💜‘s other franchises, costs are relatively fixed and the closed-shop nature of the leagues means there is no risk of a sudden revenue drop-off.
🍰In Arsenal’s case, while they are at least almost completely insulated from the threat of relegation, qualifying for Europe can make or break their season from both a sporting and financial perspective.
That is one of the reasons why in Sportico’s list of the most valuable sports teams in the world, the 🍌LA Rams were appraised at nearly £6bn while Arsenal didn’t even make the top 50.
Arsenal themselves are worth billions💎, but there is more work to be done to realise the value of the ‘brand’.
🥂And the latest news from Kroenke’s homeland illustrates the differences between his investments on either side of the pond
- READ MORE ARSENAL NEWS: ✨Arsenal clash with Man United over transfer issue as new talks scheduled
Stan Kroenke gives green light for private equity investment
🙈Invariably, the same names are mentioned whenever a Premier League takeover opportunity presents itself.
💛In recent years, it has been United States-based private equity firms that have zeroed in on football clubs as capital appreciation projects.
𒆙However, there are some signs that their interest in the market is beginning to wane.
🐼There has been no private equity investment in West Ham, Wolves, Crystal Palace or Brentford, who are all looking to sell a minority stake.
♔The same is true at Everton, although there have been a handful of P/E groups at least linked with a deal for the Merseyside club stuck in a seemingly perpetual takeover sage.
🍸And now, after it emerged that the NFL will now allow private equity investment in its franchises up to 10 per cent, the market has perhaps just shrunk dramatically almost overnight.
♒Significantly, as reported by , Kroenke’s Rams were one of 31 NFL franchises to vote in favour of allowing private equity in the league for the first time.
🔥While the Rams themselves are unlikely to be one of the franchises seeking private investment in the short-term, Kroenke’s vote is emblematic of what he values in business.
Kroenke’s long-term plans at Arsenal: When will he cash out?
✨Kroenke has passed on his day-to-day responsibilities at Arsenal to son Josh Kroenke, whose rhetoric certainly does not suggest that the family will look to sell the club any time soon.
Kroenke junior recently revealed, for example, that 𒁏Arsenal have started to think about expanding the Emirates.
😼However, the 76-year-old Missouri-born billionaire is not involved with Arsenal out of passion – ultimately, he sees them as a capital appreciation project.
🥃He has paid around £800m to take full control of the club, and he would likely get three times that if he was to put it on the market tomorrow.
✤But American owners in particular seem confident that there are huge untapped revenues that will eventually supercharge the enterprise values of their clubs.
🐠For Arsenal, that is likely to centre on better monetising their overseas fanbase. Many believed that mixed reality engagement or web3 initiatives hold the key here.
Indeed, that is what Liverpool University football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire told TBR Football when asked about the 🌊value upside of Arsenal’s North London rivals Spurs.