A subtle but very important business decision has been made by Stan Kroenke group.  Once that would have forced him to sell the Nuggets and Avalanche.

According to ESPN the St. Louis Rams are officially up for sale by the majority owners.  Kroenke owns a 40% share of the NFL franchise and had the first right of refusal to purchase the team.  The catch for us fans is that  if he excersized his right to purchase the very profitable NFL club he would have been forced to sell both the Nuggets and Avalanche due to NFL ownership rules.  We are fortunate to have an owner with some pretty deep pockets.  You can complain all you like that Silent Stan isn't a hockey fan but he does have the wallet to cover lean years and has been willing to pay up to the salary cap.  We could be much worse off.

Kroenke has also been inching up to a mandatory takeover bid of the Arsenal soccer club if he buys another 17 shares.  If that happens, he'll reporedly need 760 million dollars to make that deal.  He's reportedly worth over 2.5 billion himself (not including his wife's Walmart $2.5+ billion dollar net worth).  Some pundits claim he would need to sell off one of his other sports franchises to get that kind of cash  to make the deal.

When people complain about the Pepsi Center attendance, this is the underlying fear.  Ownership won't find enough value to keep, let alone invest in our favorite team.  I think Avs and Nuggets fans have passed a big hurdle with Kroenke's pass on the Rams majority ownership.  Kroenke owns the building and ticketing for the Avs so he's never going to face the leasing nightmares we are hearing about in Phoenix and Nashville.  We have good, solid ownership which is no small thing.  Hopefully, the Arsenal purchase isn't done at the expense of the Denver sports franchises.  Some have speculated that he might instead sell the 40% stake in the Rams instead.  With Altitude, Pepsi Center and Ticket Horse infrastructures in place around the Avalanche he's got a lot of investment in the periphery of the Avalanche.  I think that's a good sign he's on board for the long haul.