Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of sports clubs such as the Los Angeles Rams and London’s Arsenal Football Club, can claim another distinction. The Colorado real-estate magnate, once called “” for his reluctance to speak to the press, is the largest private landowner in America, as per a report published this week by The Land Report. Kroenke owns 2.7 million acres, which is roughly equivalent to 2 million football fields and larger than the vast Yosemite National Park.
Climbing to the top spot on the list—from No. 4 in 2025—Kroenke’s landholdings expanded significantly due to a December purchase of 937,000 acres of ranchland from the Singleton family, owners of an industrial conglomerate. This was the largest land acquisition in the U.S. in over a decade.
Kroenke’s real estate empire traces its origins to his success, not solely because of his marriage (since 1974) to Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke. The sports and real estate magnate made his initial through , with many featuring the big-box retailer as their key draw.
Over the past year, Kroenke surpassed fellow billionaires, who rank No. 2 on the list, and media magnate Ted Turner, who is at No. 3. The Emmerson family, which runs forest products company Sierra Pacific Industries, owns an estimated 2.4 million acres, much of it timberland. Bill Gates, who owns 275,000 acres of land, is ranked 44th. (He utilizes his property, mostly farmland owned via his investment group Cascade Investment, .)
What many on the list share, apart from their remarkable wealth, is the drive to acquire farmland—including ranchlands and timberlands—an for the ultra-rich to safeguard their wealth, hedging against inflation and the instability of some traditional assets. In 2025, the average value of U.S. farmland was about $4,350 per acre, a 4.3% year-over-year increase, or nearly 2% when adjusted for inflation, as per the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nearly 40% of U.S. farmland is now owned by landlords who lease their property to farmers and operators.
Farmland has become a $4.3 trillion asset class due to its increasing popularity, according to Steve Bruere, president of agricultural real estate firm Peoples Company.
“If you think you want diversification and you also think we’ll have underlying inflation—which is what many people want now—then farmland is a great option for them,” Bruere told .
Kroenke, through his holding company, did not promptly respond to ’s request for comment.
The rise of the farmland asset class
The 2008 financial crisis sparked in investors an urgent need to find alternative investments, and America’s ultra-rich turned to farmland to diversify their portfolios, much like how investors today are , from gold to private credit, to hedge against concerns about an AI-driven market collapse.
Much like in the 1970s, investors today are buying up farmland as a hedge against inflation, a physical asset that can maintain and increase its value because it’s a finite resource. After all, farmland value is positively correlated with inflation—meaning it appreciates as inflation rises—and not correlated with markets. There’s also a theory among investors that due to growing populations, rising incomes, and thus increasing demand for food and fuel, farms will only become more valuable.
“Acquiring some farmland where the number of arable acres in the world decreases every year is why many people like it,” Bruere stated.
That’s in addition to the passive income from leasing the land to farmers, many of whom don’t have the funds to buy their own land, as Bruere noted.
Erin Foster West, policy campaigns director for the National Young Farmers Coalition, said that many farmers can’t afford to buy the land they work, so renting is their only option.
Farmland rent is rising at a more moderate pace than land purchase prices, making it an attractive option: Average rent for U.S. cropland rose to $161 per acre last year, a 0.6% year-over-year increase, according to data. However, working farmers struggle to compete with wealthy individuals like Kroenke.
According to top analyst Tom Lee of Fundstrat, farming never recovered from the invention of flash-frozen foods in the 1920s. He recently said on the podcast, “Before freezing freed up more people’s time, farming accounted for 40% of the economy. It allowed people to be reallocated and created an entirely new labor force.”
For farmers in modern America, it’s difficult to outbid competitors like Silent Stan for farmland.
“It makes it much more challenging for farmers to compete, especially new farmers trying to get their first farm or existing farmers wanting to grow and expand,” Foster West told .