Stan Kroenke Agrees to Buy Angels From Arte Moreno, Deal Expected to Close in Q1 2027

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment announced Tuesday it has a definitive agreement to acquire a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Angels from Arte Moreno and his family, according to the company's own statement and Major League Baseball. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending MLB approval and customary closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The news lands one day after the Angels' front office restructuring under Mozeliak signaled the current baseball operations group expected to ride out this 53-85 season under new ownership stability. The team itself has now changed hands.

Moreno bought the Angels from The Walt Disney Company for $183.5 million in 2003, a year after the franchise won its only World Series title, according to KESQ. MLB owners approved that sale unanimously in May 2003, making Moreno the league's first Latino controlling owner. Forbes valued the club at $2.8 billion in March 2026, per the Los Angeles Times, meaning the franchise's worth grew more than fifteenfold over Moreno's tenure regardless of what's on the field.

The early Moreno years were the best stretch in club history. The Angels won AL West titles in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2014, and reached the ALCS twice, according to the Times. That's the strongest case for Moreno's stewardship: he inherited a champion and didn't dismantle it, and he delivered five division crowns in his first decade.

What came after is why fans spent years calling for him to sell. Despite having employed Mike Trout and, for a stretch, Shohei Ohtani before Ohtani departed in free agency for the Dodgers ahead of the 2024 season, two of the sport's generational talents, the Angels haven't won a playoff game in over a decade and haven't made the postseason since 2014, according to ABC7 and the Times. USA TODAY's Gabe Lacques, writing for Yahoo Sports, put a sharper point on it, tying the drought to Moreno's habit of signing declining veterans like Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon to massive contracts that hamstrung the roster around Trout. The club has burned through four general managers in 11 years, per that same report.

Moreno flirted with selling before. He put the team up for sale in August 2022, then pulled it back five months later, saying the family had "unfinished business," according to KESQ. This time the deal is signed. In his statement, Moreno said the family has been "honored to steward the Angels for 23 years" and believes KSE, with its "experience and success," is the right next owner, a framing every outlet in this story ran nearly verbatim.

Kroenke's statement was similarly brief: "The Angels are a storied franchise anchored in a great market. We look forward to an exciting future with the Angels organization."

What Kroenke is buying into

This isn't Kroenke's first rodeo in Southern California. Kroenke-affiliated entities own the Rams and built SoFi Stadium and the 300-acre Hollywood Park development in Inglewood, a project set to host events during the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics, according to MLB.com and the Times. The Angels deal pushes that footprint roughly 30 miles southeast into Orange County, a market of more than 3 million people with its own economy and tourism base separate from Los Angeles proper.

There's a real thread of shared history here too. The Rams and Angels both played home games at Anaheim Stadium from 1980 to 1994 before the Rams left for St. Louis, according to thesportingtribune. Now the same owner controls both franchises again.

With the Angels, KSE will own a team in each of the four major North American leagues plus a Premier League club: the Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids, Colorado Mammoth and Arsenal, according to ABC7 and KESQ. ABC7 noted the Rams, Nuggets, Avalanche and Arsenal have all won championships in the last decade. Kroenke also has a specific history with L.A. baseball: he was a backup bidder for the Dodgers in 2012 before Magic Johnson's group won that sale, according to the Daily Mail.

Yahoo Sports' Lacques added context the other outlets skipped: the sale comes as Dodgers owner Mark Walter sold the Lakers for $12.5 billion less than a year after buying them, and as Walter faces a federal investigation over $21 billion in loans he didn't disclose to state insurance regulators. Dodgers executives insist that club isn't for sale.

What's unresolved

MLB has not yet approved the transaction, and it won't vote until closer to the expected first-quarter 2027 closing. Manager Kurt Suzuki is on a one-year deal and, per USA TODAY's reporting, unlikely to be retained regardless of who signs his next paycheck. Whether Trout or the front office restructuring survives the ownership change past 2027 remains unclear.