Patriots Owner Robert Kraft was profiled in Sunday's
BOSTON GLOBE by Charles Sennott in an extensive, above-the-
fold, front-page feature. Although Kraft had been cast as
the "protagonist" in the team's recent "stadium struggle,"
with the Super Bowl and "the showdown with Bill Parcells,
he's been thrust onto a much larger stage, leaving a much
wider audience wondering just who is Citizen Kraft?" With
multiple interviews with Kraft's business associates, his
sons, "his enemies and his allies, a picture emerges of a
man of complex motivations." Sennott notes Kraft is
"obsessed with control, especially when it comes to his
image, and betrays a decided naivete, or arrogance, about
the news media." He asked a reporter not to do the GLOBE
story, "and at one point complained, 'I didn't ask for this
profile, you know. So why is it being done?'" After
agreeing to be interviewed, Kraft added, "What have I done
that is so bad here?" Those who know "him well, few of whom
are willing to criticize him on the record, say Kraft
thrives on the media attention and the limelight that comes
with owning a team" (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/2).
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS: Kraft's proposal for a
$200M stadium in South Boston "has become a tribal clash
between a tough and tightknit neighborhood ... and a brash
industrialist." Kraft's son, Jonathan, who is CFO of The
Kraft Group, can't understand why South Boston has been so
opposed to the project. Jonathan Kraft: "I don't know if
it's anti-Semitism, or anti-Kraftism, or anti-footballism,
but it's really strange. ... I just don't get it." Boston
Mayor Thomas Menino: "It's always tough for a business
person to jump in the public arena. But this has been just
unbelievable. It's like he doesn't get it -- no sense of
when to go forward and when to pull back. ... They think
everyone is against them. They just don't get it." While
Kraft knows how to run a successful football team, some
insiders tell the GLOBE's Sennott that over the season,
Kraft's "distorted sense of his own ego reached dizzying
heights." One "longtime friend" who said that he has seen a
"dramatic shift in his behavior," said Kraft's "ego is just
out of control" (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/2).
