Rams owner Stan Kroenke is now the largest private landowner in the United States

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for the high-net-worth investor and consumer. subscription To receive future issues, directly to your inbox.

Stanley Kroenke owns the world’s most valuable sports empire, including the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Now the sports mogul is also the largest private landowner in America, according to a newly released land report.

At 2.7 million acres, Kroenke’s property is larger than Yellowstone National Park — or the equivalent of about 2 million football fields.

Kroenke purchased nearly 1 million acres of ranch land in New Mexico in December from the family behind industrial conglomerate Teledyne, according to Land Report. According to the trade publication, the Singleton Ranches deal is the largest land purchase in the United States in more than a decade. Teledyne’s late founder, Henry Singleton, started his namesake ranch in the 1980s and has grown into one of the largest cattle and horse operations in the country.

The acquisition catapulted Kroenke from fourth to first in Land Report’s annual ranking of the nation’s 100 largest private landowners, overtaking the Emerson lumber family as well as billionaire media moguls John Malone and Ted Turner.

Most of the top 100 landowners are not as prominent names as Kroenke. The Emerson family, which ranks second, owns an estimated 2.44 million acres through its forest products company Sierra Pacific Industries. The Singleton family, which sold New Mexico ranches to Kroenke, remains in 98th place with 171,000 acres.

However, investing in American farmland has become popular among the wealthy as a way to hedge against inflation and stock market fluctuations. From 2019 to 2024, farmland values ​​grew at an average annual rate of 5.8%, or 2% after inflation, according to the USDA.

Billionaire businessmen, from Bill Gates to Philipp Anschutz, are increasingly buying up tracts of land for farming, ranching and forestry. Gates ranks 44th overall on the Land Report list with 275,000 acres, but he remains the largest private owner of farmland in the United States, specifically. Gates’ farmland, owned through his investment group, Cascade Investments, includes soybeans, corn, cotton, rice and even potatoes used in agriculture. McDonald’s French fries.

Online brokerage billionaire Thomas Peterffy and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also made the cut, with 647,000 acres and 462,000 acres, respectively.

Kroenke was able to grow his land holdings relatively quickly by acquiring huge farms that families had held for decades or even generations. He bought one of his largest ranches, Wagoner Ranch in North Texas, for $725 million in 2016, ending 160 years of family ownership. While these unique farms are in short supply, more are hitting the market as heirs decide to sell rather than continue the family business.