Three Super Bowl appearances in 10 years of owning the New England Patriots is not too shabby. Throw in for good measure the privately financed Gillette Stadium, which opened last season, and Robert Kraft has had as good a first decade as any sports owner could hope for. On the eve of that third Super Bowl appearance, Kraft spent a few minutes sharing the secrets of football success with SportsBusiness Journal staff writer Daniel Kaplan. But before he would even entertain a question, the gracious Kraft insisted on complimenting his friend and rival this Sunday, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.
Kraft: I personally have a great respect and friendship for Jerry Richardson, and I think we have a lot of similarities. We both came into the league the same year [1994], different routes, but we both came in. We both are privileged to have family members playing important roles in the team, [my son] Jonathan [Kraft] and he has [his son] Mark.
SBJ: Does having family members involved make a difference in creating the success?
Kraft: It makes a difference in that it makes it more fun for me both as an owner and a business partner and father. But I think both he [Jerry Richardson] and I have a passion for football. ... He is just a great guy, and both of us are still married to the same women, we found good partners in our private life, and he has been a great partner in this. The fact that we have a special friendship between our families ... we are going to have some fun here.
SBJ: What business decisions allowed you to get to your second Super Bowl in three years?
Kraft: Well, I guess it's the third in eight. Well, I dreamt for a number of years about buying the team. In 1985 we got an option on 330 acres around the stadium ... and I tried to figure out how we could get a competitive advantage and be able to buy the team. Because, you know, many teams never come up for sale. Like the Rooneys [who own the Pittsburgh Steelers], the Maras [who co-own the New York Giants] and the McCaskeys [who own the Chicago Bears], they have never really been sold. So in the rare time it comes up you have to be ready to act. So that's why I got this 10-year option on the land in 1985 and, in 1988, bought the old Foxboro Stadium out of bankruptcy court. ... You know, we made a decision to buy the team that was not really an economic decision but to keep it from moving to St. Louis. The economic price for us was around $115 [million], maximum $120 [million], and we paid $172 [million]. So it's been a long plan, and to have our stadium, both of us have privately financed stadiums. ... We did that to be able to position ourselves to have a fan base that would allow us to hopefully have a competitive edge playing at home. I don't know if you saw the game [Jan. 18], but our fans were terrific.
Our fans are just awesome. ... I don't know that any team has gone 12-0 at home before, but that's our record this year [counting preseason and playoff games]. I give the fans a great deal of credit, because you know we had those rain games, which were horrible, against the Giants and Cleveland, and snow games against Miami and Jacksonville. And then the brutal coldest day in the history of New England, in this region, was the game against Tennessee. I never remember anything like that, and we were just packed. If you saw [the AFC title game] with the inclement weather, the snow, even for the presentation ceremony everybody stayed in their seats. They're just fabulous fans.
Part of that, and Jerry has done a similar thing down there, if the fans feel you are passionate about the team then they will come out and support you.
SBJ: When did the fans start supporting the team?
Kraft: Well, when we bought the team, it had been in existence 34 years and it never sold out one year. They averaged in the low 20s [20,000 for] season tickets and the low 40s [40,000 in] average attendance. I think when the fans saw our family step up and buy the team and keep it here, keep it from moving, everybody said thank-you to us. And they said, "What could we do?" And we said buy season tickets. We made 70 speeches in the first 90 days. Today we are happy to have 50,000 people on the paid waiting list, so it's come a long way. Every game has been sold out since our family owned the team.
SBJ: Would the success have been possible this year in the old stadium?
Kraft: I don't think so. Well, let me think about that for a moment. I am not sure. We know that we probably couldn't have competed. We had continuously for the first eight years of our ownership put capital from the family businesses into the Patriots, because the business on its own did not generate the revenues.
SBJ: You were losing money the first eight years?
Kraft: No, I am not saying that. ... We like every business to stand on its own, and if we didn't have a new stadium it never would have stood on its own. We wouldn't have been able to compete in the NFL as it exists today. We were the only people who built a stadium, because most stadiums are built by municipalities, but we are the only people who owned our own stadium for 13 years, so we did a lot of things with our stadium.
I used to go with my four boys and we bought season tickets when Schaefer Stadium opened up in 1971, and sat on the goal line. We know what our fans want, and what we wanted, and that's the way we have tried to run this franchise.
SBJ: What will this Super Bowl appearance mean for your business, sponsorships, ad rates, etc. ...
Kraft: I hope it means good things (laughing). If we win, it will be positive; it won't be a negative, it will be a positive. If we don't win, I don't think we will get the kick.
SBJ: Even though you made the Super Bowl?
Kraft: Do you remember who was in the Super Bowl five years ago against Denver. ... That's the point I am trying to make. People want to brand with winners, companies want to brand with people of integrity and people perceived as winners. So I know both the Panthers and ourselves very much want to win this thing, and it should be a great contest.
SBJ: Can you sustain on-field excellence or will free agency be a problem like past Super Bowl winners?
Kraft: Well, I am proud that we have been able to do it twice in the last three years. We have a system in place, and financial disciplines in place, that hopefully will allow us to compete and have a shot at making the playoffs. But there are so many factors that are out of your control, like injuries. Or usually it's two or three plays in a game that decide whether you win or lose the game. I mean, our game [the AFC title game] went right down to the end, and that's the reason the public watches it the way it is, because there is such a competitive atmosphere in different communities. I desperately hope we will be able to compete, but time will tell.
Editors' note: The Carolina Panthers did not respond to requests to interview team owner Jerry Richardson.
