Robert Kraft’s Long Road from Business to Sports

When Tampa Bay Buccaneer Tom Brady gave a big hub to New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, the move made headlines. Why? Because Brady, an NFL quarterback with decades of experience, played for Kraft’s Patriots for 20 seasons before breaking south to Tampa Bay, the two retain a strong friendship despite the recent change in Brady’s jersey. Kraft, a business mogul with an extensive background, mentioned during a recent interview with NFL Network, “I’m always rooting for Tommy, except when he’s playing us.”

Though Robert Kraft owns the Patriots, that’s just a very small part of his outstanding business career and portfolio. At 80 years old, he also has ownership of the Boston Uprising, the New England Revolution, Gillette Stadium, the Rand-Whitney Group, International Forest Products, as well as Rand-Whitney Containerboard. But his start came a lot closer to his current achievements, as he began selling newspapers at the old Braves Field stadium in Boston to earn money.

From there, he began building his fortune, pinpointed at about 8.3 billion USD according to Forbes. As he lived in Boston, he attended Harvard Business School, graduating in 1965, two years after marrying his wife, Myra Hiatt, who passed away in 2011. Once he’d graduated, he went to work at the Rand-Whitney Group, which was a paper and packing company which was owned by his father-in-law, Jacob Hiatt. Three year later, he made a leveraged buyout to gain a controlling interest in the company. He founded International Forest Products four years later, which started as a way to trade forest product commodities. Following his time in Boston, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and later Atlanta, Georgia.

After working in business for about 20 years, he began looking at a range of new investment opportunities. Standing in the old New England Patriot’s parking lot, he began his process of moving towards owning the Patriot’s franchise. He bought an option on land that was surrounding the Patriot’s prior location, the Foxboro Stadium, at 27 million USD in 1985. It would take several more years before his dream of owning the team would come to fruition, however, and he was a season pass holder for a total of 23 years before taking ownership.

Three short years later, he purchased the stadium, which was in bankruptcy court, then a year before the option ended, he decided that he should buy the patriots at 172 million USD in 1994, passing up on a buyout offer of 75 million USD. However, this was just his first step into sports team ownership. The day he took ownership, he swore, “My objective in buying the Patriots is to help bring a championship to New England.” Indeed, his ownership has lead to six Super Bowl Championship for the franchise, striking pride into the hearts of fans in Boston and around the world.

In 1996, Robert Kraft branched out further. He and his family founded Major League Soccer, as well as the New England Revolution. Reaching the point of being a standout within the league, the team has won the MLS Cup a total of five times during the league’s first two decades of operation, providing plenty of boasting rights for its owners.

Kraft worked with his son to found the Boston Uprising in 2017, which is an e-sports team that competes in the Overwatch League. This opportunity allowed Kraft to expand his portfolio. Robert Kraft also noted that this is a great opportunity to give e-sports fans around the world an introduction to his new company and that he, “is eager to use the Boston Uprising to introduce Boston and our franchise,” to the worldwide community. “We are currently assembling a team that we anticipate will compete for championships, as Boston sports fans have come to expect from all of their professional teams,” he mentioned.

Robert Kraft has come a long way from his early newspaper-selling roots outside the old Braves’ stadium in Boston, extending beyond sports to include a range of awards and philanthropic recognition for his work. Covering a wide range of vertical investing opportunities, he is currently active in packaging and paper, sports, entertainment, venture investing, and real estate.

Find more information about Kraft on https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/robert-kraft