Stan Kroenke’s championship success has common thread
Different sports. Different stars. Similar results.
Representatives of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche will be in Los Angeles this week, dropping in on Rams training camp to swap ideas about how best to chase championships.
This isn’t about DEN but DNA.
All three franchises are owned by Stan Kroenke, who in an unprecedented 18-month span watched his teams win the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and NBA championship.
“The neat thing is they all root for each other,” Kroenke said.
That goes for the Kroenke-owned Arsenal Football Club, too, which finished runner-up in the Premier League each of the last two seasons. Rams coach Sean McVay and General Manager Les Snead were at SoFi Stadium on Saturday to watch Arsenal in a 2-1 exhibition victory over Manchester United.
McVay and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, both young and largely untested when they were hired, have become friends over the years. The Rams have used Arsenal’s facility to practice before games in London. Arsenal, in town last week, participated in a youth soccer clinic at Rams camp.
“It’s down to the ownership, they’ve shown a lot of faith in both of us,” said Arteta, 42, a former player who had no full-time managerial experience when he was hired in 2019.
McVay was 30 when the Rams hired him in 2017, making him the youngest NFL head coach in the modern era. He had immediate success, guiding the Rams to an NFC title in the 2018 season and back to the Super Bowl in 2021, where they won a Lombardi Trophy on their home field.
“Some of the best coaching jobs that Sean and Mikel have done came when our squad or our team had some injuries, or maybe the talent level wasn’t as high as our opponent,” said Josh Kroenke, who along with his father oversees day-to-day operations of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment franchises. “Their ability to coach really shows in those moments.”
The Kroenkes rolled the dice on other coaches too. Although he had a lot of success in lesser leagues, Jared Bednar had no NHL playing or coaching experience when the Avalanche hired him in 2016. A year earlier, the Nuggets hired Mike Malone who had only brief experience as head coach of the Sacramento Kings.
Likewise, the Kroenkes have a track record of hiring — and sticking with — first-time general managers with playing experience in the college and/or professional ranks, among them Les Snead (Rams), Calvin Booth (Nuggets) and Edu (Arsenal).
“It’s important to have patience,” Josh Kroenke said. “As much as we want ready-made players that are ready to go win a championship, winning at the highest process is not linear. You’ve got to kind of climb like this [tracing an imaginary mountain range with his finger].”
Another common thread among the championship teams is they were built around cornerstone players who were drafted and developed by the franchise. It was Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald with the Rams, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray with the Nuggets, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar with the Avalanche.
Often, after those teams got to the altar, they would make the investment to acquire a player or players in an effort to reach new heights, such as Matthew Stafford with the Rams, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with the Nuggets, or Declan Rice, who signed a record-setting deal with Arsenal.
“When these teams have gotten close and fallen short, [the Kroenkes] haven’t made drastic managerial or coaching changes,” said Kevin Demoff, recently promoted from chief operating officer of the Rams to president of KSE’s North America teams and media.
“Instead, they’ve empowered those front offices to go get a significant piece to put them over the top, and it has usually worked.”
Former Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth, who retired after winning the Super Bowl, has grown to appreciate the synergy among the teams. He also took note of how nervous Stan Kroenke appeared to be when the Nuggets were on the verge of clinching the championship.
Joked Whitworth: “He wasn’t that nervous before the Super Bowl. I thought, `He loves them more than he loved us.’”
Typical family.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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