DENVER – Stan Kroenke owns three major professional sports franchises in the Denver area: the NBA Nuggets, the NHL Avalanche and the MLS Rapids, plus the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League.

When he is here to tend to their business, which is often, he lives in a spacious penthouse jutting out of one side and on top of the Pepsi Center, the 18,000-seat downtown arena he also owns.

View photos Stan Kroenke: It's hard to get things done in California. (AP) More

It's an incredible home, spacious and brilliantly decorated, with multiple outdoor spaces and views of both downtown and the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Once inside, it feels like a standalone home off in some gated community in the suburbs, not something that is an elevator ride from a raucous arena.

"Convenient commute," Kroenke said with a laugh to Yahoo Sports on Saturday night while watching his Nuggets defeat the Detroit Pistons.

It's every young sports fans' dream – can't we just live in the arena?

"Sports and real estate development is a large part of what we do," said Kroenke, who Forbes estimates is worth $7.7 billion.

Sports and real estate. Real estate and sports.

It's how Stan Kroenke, despite lacking the big personality or high-profile of a Jerry Jones or a Mark Cuban, has emerged as one of the world's preeminent professional sports owners and, with construction set to begin on a state-of-the-art, 100,000-capacity, clear-roofed stadium in a 300-acre development in Inglewood, Calif., undeniably one of the most powerful figures in sports in this country.

The franchises here in Colorado are big, his other two are bigger. There is the London-based Arsenal Football Club of the English Premier League and its home arena, Emirates Stadium, the third largest in England.

Then there are the Rams of the NFL, which after approval this month from the NFL will leave St. Louis and return to their Los Angeles roots and into what is expected to be the envy of any venue in the world. It was Kroenke, who after two-plus decades solved the NFL's L.A. riddle, something many billionaires, businessmen, entertainment moguls, governors, mayors and so on couldn't.

"The NFL had a problem out there, I was on the committee [looking at relocation possibilities] for years," Kroenke said. "We never got anything done. It's hard to get things done in California."

Hard, but, it turns out, not impossible.

*****

Kroenke, 68, grew up in rural Missouri, where as a child he served as a bookkeeper to his father, a small business owner. He later attended the University of Missouri, where he also earned an MBA. He focused on real estate and operates a vast array of companies and interests, although he still carries himself with a calm, down-home style that belies his immense wealth. His preferred drink is a very cold Coors Light. His wife, Ann Walton Kroenke, is herself a billionaire, part of the Wal-Mart family fortune.

View photos Hollywood Park will be the site where the Rams will build their new stadium. (AP) More

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