{"id":450331,"date":"2026-09-01T21:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/450331\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:42:09","slug":"why-the-angels-will-get-a-fresh-start-with-stan-kroenke-and-much-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/450331\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Angels will get a fresh start with Stan Kroenke, and much more"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Angels<\/a> won their lone World Series, this was the headline in the Los Angeles Times: \u201cFantasyland!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Can we run that headline again?<\/p>\n

For your new owner, Angels fans, you get a proven winner and real estate developer \u2014 more on that in a second \u2014 whose very name drips with baseball history.<\/p>\n

You know him as Stan Kroenke<\/a>, the owner of the Rams<\/a>. His full name is Enos Stanley Kroenke, so named in honor of two St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famers: Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial.<\/p>\n

As he assembled his sports empire, baseball was the one sport that eluded him. He has the Rams, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche and Arsenal. He badly wanted the Dodgers<\/a>, a runner-up in the bidding when Mark Walter<\/a> bought them in 2012.<\/p>\n

Now he is acquiring the Angels<\/a> \u2014 at a $4 billion valuation, a record for a baseball team \u2014 and getting the closest thing to a blank slate that any owner can get without buying an expansion team.<\/p>\n

The general manager<\/a>? He\u2019s an interim, and his contract expires this year.<\/p>\n

The manager<\/a>? His contract expires this year, too.<\/p>\n

The roster? The only players currently under contract for next year are outfielder Mike Trout<\/a> \u2014 the Angels\u2019 answer to Musial \u2014 and pitcher Yusei Kikuchi.<\/p>\n

The stadium? The lease expires in six years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Angels\u2019 playoff drought? The longest in the majors, going on 12 seasons. Go, Super Bowl champ, go!<\/p>\n

For Kroenke, the first order of business might well be a comprehensive search for what would be the Angels\u2019 answer to Les Snead and Sean McVay, the GM and head coach duo that led Kroenke\u2019s Rams to a Super Bowl championship. The players might not be the next order of business. The deal is not expected to be approved until early 2027, according to a sale announcement, and who knows whether owners still will be locking out players by then?<\/p>\n

But Kroenke appears to be the perfect guy to resolve the longest-running and most critical order of business in Anaheim: resolving the Angels\u2019 future there.<\/p>\n

For 60 years, the Angels have played in a stadium surrounded by 130 acres of parking lots. For 60 years, fans have driven into the parking lots, watched the game, and driven home. For 60 years, the city has lost untold millions in tax revenue by failing to build anything atop those parking lots.<\/p>\n

Kroenke just does it. He is doing it around SoFi Stadium<\/a>, which he built. He is doing it around the Rams\u2019 training facility in Woodland Hills<\/a>, which he built. He plans to do it around the sports arena he is building in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Now Kroenke could lobby for a new ballpark in Inglewood, in place of the Forum, and call it synergy. James Butts, the mayor of Inglewood, has said he would frown upon a ballpark there.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s betting Kroenke won\u2019t ask. The sale announcement highlighted Kroenke\u2019s \u201cpresence in one of the largest sports and entertainment markets in the United States\u201d and said the purchase of the Angels \u201cextends this footprint south into a market of more than three million residents with its own distinct civic identity, corporate base and tourism economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kroenke wants what all sports owners want these days: money coming out of a stadium site 365 days a year, not just on game days. That means shops, restaurants, homes, hotels, offices, parks, music venues, and food halls. And good luck to Kroenke or any other developer trying to find a vacant 130 acres in any urban area in Southern California, much less one adjacent to a train station and within three freeways.<\/p>\n

This is already happening across the 57 Freeway from Angel Stadium, where Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli are putting up what they call the OC Vibe<\/a>. Kroenke\u2019s history indicates he would do something just as fun, and likely grander given that he\u2019ll have more land, and suddenly Anaheim could be the coolest place to be in Orange County (*unless Olivia Rodrigo is putting on another Daisy Chain Fields festival in Irvine).<\/p>\n

And, if Kroenke is willing to rename the team the Anaheim Angels, the city and its local assemblyman just pushed through a new law<\/a> that could provide him with a significant financial incentive for development, which in turn could reduce his cost to build the new ballpark the Angels so desperately need.<\/p>\n

The city owns the stadium and parking lots, so they were not part of the team sale. City officials have not met with Kroenke.<\/p>\n

\u201cFans and residents welcome the start of a new chapter for baseball in Anaheim,\u201d Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said. \u201cI am encouraged by Stan Kroenke\u2019s track record with the Rams and his commitment to investing in and uplifting neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to working with the team\u2019s incoming ownership to advance our city\u2019s priorities around housing, open space and youth sports at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, Anaheim has loftily labeled the land around the neighborhood around the \u201cPlatinum Triangle.\u201d Now the city might well have struck gold.<\/p>\n

The local assemblyman that introduced that law, Avelino Valencia, could hardly have been any happier Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big day for Anaheim,\u201d Valencia texted me. \u201cFor 60 years, our community has filled Angel Stadium, raised a World Series banner as the Anaheim Angels, and shown up through every season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew cities can offer a new owner a foundation like that. New ownership means new possibilities, and Anaheim is ready for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI congratulate Stan Kroenke and Kroenke Sports and Entertainment on their agreement to purchase the Angels, and I welcome them home. Let\u2019s build a partnership rooted in pride of place, a team that reflects the city it calls home, and the return of the Anaheim Angels.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnaheim is ready to work together, and Anaheim is ready to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, State Sen. Tom Umberg called it \u201ca great day for Angels fans and Anaheim.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the stalemate between the city and Angels owner Arte Moreno grew more entrenched, the condition of Angel Stadium deteriorated. So did Moreno\u2019s investment in the team.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the city commissioned an assessment of what it would take to keep Angel Stadium up and running for decades to come. We\u2019re still waiting.<\/p>\n

Those words, in a nutshell, exemplified the relationship between the team and the city in recent years. When the news broke Tuesday, a city official reached out to me to ask if it were true. And, after years of city officials sniping that the Angels had for a decade clipped the \u201cof Anaheim\u201d from their \u201cLos Angeles Angels of Anaheim\u201d name, the Angels e-mailed a statement confirming the sale with this headline: \u201cKroenke Sports & Entertainment to Acquire the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a season of \u201cSell The Team\u201d chants<\/a>, Moreno did. And, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Valencia\u2019s bill into law last week, the title of the law actually sounded more appropriate Tuesday: \u201cThe Home Run for Anaheim Act.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Angels won their lone World Series, this was the headline in the Los Angeles Times: \u201cFantasyland!\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,14541,1426,11118,11897,71733,1409,178153,1073,178152,63,76633,1410,74699,72],"class_list":["post-450331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-angel","tag-angels","tag-avelino-valencia","tag-baseball-team","tag-big-day","tag-city","tag-entertainment-market","tag-home","tag-kroenke","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-new-owner","tag-place","tag-stan-kroenke","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}