Speaker 1: Over the past quarter century, the most successful sports owner
Speaker 1: in the world has been Robert Kraft. He's taken his team,
Speaker 1: the New England Patriots, to six Super Bowl championships with
Speaker 1: the help of Tom Brady, his star quarterback. I had
Speaker 1: a chance to sit down with Robert Kraft at his
Speaker 1: Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts to talk about how he's
Speaker 1: been so successful as a sports team owner, but also
Speaker 1: his new found and very deeply felt interest in fighting
Speaker 1: anti Semitism. Bob, in your wildest dreams when you bought
Speaker 1: this team in nineteen ninety four, did you ever imagine
Speaker 1: you'd win six Super Bowls and be the most famous
Speaker 1: owner in professional sports?
Speaker 2: Well, I sat in the stands of the old Foxboro Stadium,
Speaker 2: and then when they came here, I sat in the
Speaker 2: stands here and dreamt about one day trying to buy
Speaker 2: this team and own it and run it the way
Speaker 2: I wanted. I said, if I could ever get this team,
Speaker 2: I just dream of having home playoff games and going
Speaker 2: to the Super Bowl and winning it.
Speaker 1: Now, when you bought the team, I think you paid
Speaker 1: roughly one hundred and seventy five million dollars, something like
Speaker 1: the one hundred and seventy two, one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: two million dollars. Okay, one hundred and seventy two million dollars,
Speaker 1: which was a lot of money in those days, the
Speaker 1: highest price ever paid for a football team at the time.
Speaker 2: For any sports franchise anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm sure your friends said, Bob, are you crazy?
Speaker 2: My friends, my wife, it's the one time in our
Speaker 2: marriage that she was ready to really wring my neck.
Speaker 1: But now the Commanders, they were sold recently for a
Speaker 1: purchase price of six billion dollars and they haven't won
Speaker 1: six Super Bowls. So if you put your team up
Speaker 1: for sale, presumably it's worth eight billion, ten billion or more.
Speaker 1: Would you ever consider selling or you're never going to sell.
Speaker 2: Never in my lifetime will we sell this team. And
Speaker 2: I hope my children keep it going as well. It
Speaker 2: also builds community. It's a way to build bridges. You
Speaker 2: bring people of all background together. I think back to
Speaker 2: when we were privileged to win our first Super Bowl
Speaker 2: three four months after nine to eleven in Boston, a
Speaker 2: city of six hundred thousand people. A million and a
Speaker 2: half people came out on the streets very cold day,
Speaker 2: you know, black, white, Asian, gay, every background, all putting
Speaker 2: community and team first. And that's a privilege and an honor.
Speaker 2: So I look at this team as like a community
Speaker 2: asset and I'm never going to sell it.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about the NFL general. The
Speaker 1: NFL prices for or the value of the team's going up,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, and that's because TV contracts have
Speaker 1: gone up. How much higher do you think TV contracts
Speaker 1: can really go? Is there any limit to how much
Speaker 1: you can get paid by the casters?
Speaker 2: Well, I've been privileged to be chair of the Media
Speaker 2: Committee for the last couple of decades, and three years
Speaker 2: ago we three seasons ago we were able to do
Speaker 2: seven to ten year contracts that exceeded one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty billion dollars and that was tremendous because it gave
Speaker 2: us great stability in the league where we could do
Speaker 2: a ten year labor deal. We basically share fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty with the players the revenue, so you know, they
Speaker 2: have been able to grow and succeed with us. It's
Speaker 2: you know, we know linear TV is really challenged now
Speaker 2: and we've been doing things that we brought in two
Speaker 2: tech partners now who Amazon and Google or YouTube, and
Speaker 2: I think we are developing our own NFL plus where
Speaker 2: we go direct to consumer, and I think we'll have
Speaker 2: some serious decisions to make down the road when we
Speaker 2: see what happens in the whole media environment.
Speaker 1: Now, the NFL is the most popular, I guess spectator
Speaker 1: sport in the United States. You could argue it gets
Speaker 1: better TV ratings than virtually any other sport. But around
Speaker 1: the world, the most popular sport seems to be for
Speaker 1: this purpose, what it's called soccer in this country and
Speaker 1: football outside. Can you make American football as popular outside
Speaker 1: the United States as European football is around the world
Speaker 1: or is that not realistic?
Speaker 2: I don't think it's realistic, partly because to play the
Speaker 2: sport of soccer, all you need is a ball. Really,
Speaker 2: you don't need equipment, you don't need anything but at
Speaker 2: and a ball. Two thirds of the world's population can
Speaker 2: actually play the game. Unfortunately, except for Europe, we haven't
Speaker 2: really had the game play. Like We're going to Germany
Speaker 2: this year and the stadium we're playing has fifty five
Speaker 2: or sixty thousand seats and demand for tickets was three
Speaker 2: million within the first twenty four hours, So the demand
Speaker 2: is there and the appreciation of the game, and I
Speaker 2: think we're going to work to have the game appreciated
Speaker 2: more globally. And I think with gaming coming on that
Speaker 2: people throughout the world our sport has a forty second
Speaker 2: delay between plays that prop betting and other kinds of gaming.
Speaker 2: Is we educate more internationally, That's where the marketplace really
Speaker 2: is open for us. But I don't think, unfortunately, they'll
Speaker 2: be playing the game all over the world.
Speaker 1: One of the issues in the NFL has had to
Speaker 1: deal with is the concussion issue when you were playing football.
Speaker 1: I wasn't probably as big a deal when I played
Speaker 1: football when I was ten or twelve. You know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting hit in the head that much by people
Speaker 1: were weighing two or three hundred pounds. Today you have
Speaker 1: a lot of players a weigh three hundred pounds. They
Speaker 1: hit you, you can really get hurt. You've settled the
Speaker 1: litigation I think on concussions, And do you think the
Speaker 1: concussion issue has largely been addressed and do you think
Speaker 1: better helmets will help the problem in the future a bit.
Speaker 2: I think the advancement that has come with the medical support.
Speaker 2: In the end, I go back to where we were
Speaker 2: this is our thirtieth season, pinched myself. But the medical
Speaker 2: advancement and looking to keep the game as healthy as
Speaker 2: possible with the helmets weave and have an independent doctor
Speaker 2: who sits above, who can take any player out of
Speaker 2: the game or have him be tested, because you know,
Speaker 2: guys sometimes wouldn't want to go out because they don't
Speaker 2: want to lose their job. I really believe the medical
Speaker 2: and safety is better than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about one of the most
Speaker 1: faithful decisions I guess your team ever made. Somebody decided
Speaker 1: the draft a goy named Tom Brady who had played
Speaker 1: football at University of Michigan. Initially I think it was
Speaker 1: at Michigan. He wasn't the number one draft pick, and
Speaker 1: you know, somebody must have seen something in him. Who
Speaker 1: was the person who said, hey, let's take Tom Brady
Speaker 1: a gamble on him.
Speaker 2: Well, that gentleman was a man by the name of
Speaker 2: Dick Raybind. In that draft there were seven quarterbacks taken,
Speaker 2: I think by the third or fourth round, and this man,
Speaker 2: Dick Raybind And I remember in the draft room him
Speaker 2: saying to Belichick, you know, Tom Brady's still there. He's
Speaker 2: tremendous value, but we had three quarterbacks. And then the
Speaker 2: fourth round came, the fifth round came, the sixth round came,
Speaker 2: and the last pick of the sixth round, which is
Speaker 2: known as a compensatory pick, draft pick number one ninety nine.
Speaker 2: We wound up taking Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: So how did it feel when he decided to leave
Speaker 1: the team? You obviously could have kept him, I guess,
Speaker 1: but he decided to leave or and he decided to
Speaker 1: go to the Tampa Bay team and they won the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl his first year. So did you say I
Speaker 1: should have kept him, or you say, look, I made
Speaker 1: a long term decision, and I'm okay with it.
Speaker 2: I always would talk to him, and he would take
Speaker 2: less money to play for the Patriots, and you know,
Speaker 2: we have a salary cap, so I always assured him
Speaker 2: that whatever money I didn't pay him wasn't going into
Speaker 2: my pocket. It was going to other players who would
Speaker 2: be around him. And if we won those kind of trophies,
Speaker 2: he would be the biggest beneficiary for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life, which in fact has happened. And you know,
Speaker 2: if the Patriots can't win a Super Bowl, I'm always rooting.
Speaker 2: If we're out of it, I'm rooting for Tom Brady,
Speaker 2: and after being with us for twenty years, we could
Speaker 2: have franchised him or done other things. I said to
Speaker 2: him when he did his last contract two years before that,
Speaker 2: at year twenty, he would decide whether he stayed with
Speaker 2: us or not. I think he had earned that right,
Speaker 2: and for his own personal reasons, he felt it was
Speaker 2: best to move on.
Speaker 1: You also have the most success full coach practically in
Speaker 1: football history, Bill Belichick, who you brought back to this team.
Speaker 1: I guess about twenty some years ago. He had been
Speaker 1: coaching at the New York Giants for a while, been here,
Speaker 1: and then you brought him back as the head coach.
Speaker 2: You'd been with us twenty four years. He has the
Speaker 2: longest serving.
Speaker 1: Coach in NFL history. Nobody's I think, probably, Well, somebody
Speaker 1: may have coached twenty four years of one team. Maybe
Speaker 1: George hallis because he was the owner of the team.
Speaker 1: But now six Super Bowls. He's now been with you
Speaker 1: twenty four years. Is he going to stay for another
Speaker 1: X number of years? Or he can stay forever?
Speaker 2: I'll let you ask him, he asked. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: decide what's right for you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your background. Where were you born? I
Speaker 1: guess from your accent you were probably born or raised
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Probably I still pot my kit here, okay, but I
Speaker 2: grew up in Brookline, mass went to public schools.
Speaker 1: Were you an athlete?
Speaker 2: Well, I like to think I was an athlete. Wait.
Speaker 2: My favorite sport was football, but we observed the Sabbath,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately in high school I couldn't play football because
Speaker 2: of that. But I was able to get a full
Speaker 2: academic scholarship to Columbia College, and I went there and
Speaker 2: played football there and just loved the game and realized
Speaker 2: how football in life is the greatest training ground for
Speaker 2: people in business or life or anything.
Speaker 1: What did you do after you graduated from Columbia?
Speaker 2: I was privileged to go to Harvard Business School.
Speaker 1: So after you graduated from Harvard Business School, what did
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: My father in law had a couple box plants and
Speaker 2: he wanted me to join them, and I didn't want
Speaker 2: to be I wanted to go into business for myself.
Speaker 2: My father advised me, since my wife at the time
Speaker 2: was the equivalent of an only child, that I should
Speaker 2: do that and out of respect, which I did. I
Speaker 2: did it two years and I was going to leave,
Speaker 2: and I was asked what I could do to stay,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know, I'd want to buy into
Speaker 2: the company. I didn't want to be working for other people,
Speaker 2: even if they were relatives, and so I was able
Speaker 2: to do a leverage buyout.
Speaker 1: So you were in the private equity world.
Speaker 2: I started on my own. Yeah, interest rates were favorable,
Speaker 2: and I bought half the company. And then there was
Speaker 2: an opportunity to take over a paper mill up in Canada,
Speaker 2: and I decided I wanted to do it. I offered
Speaker 2: my father in law half the company. He passed on it,
Speaker 2: and so I did it, and fifty one years later,
Speaker 2: we've developed that into an international company. We're in over
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty countries in the world and we're
Speaker 2: number six and paper and Packaging and preumber six.
Speaker 1: But it's a private owned company. You're not going to
Speaker 1: take a public.
Speaker 2: Or sell it or anything not in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're not selling the Patriots, you're not selling
Speaker 1: the packaging company. I guess you don't like to sell.
Speaker 2: Things, right, I really don't.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why you wouldn't be good in the private
Speaker 1: equity business, because we like to sell things.
Speaker 2: I get emotional attached to and to the people working there.
Speaker 2: We try to create a family environment in everything we're
Speaker 2: involved in. I've learned that people want to be part
Speaker 2: of something that's bigger than themselves.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the team.
Speaker 2: I see today that someone writes a check and they
Speaker 2: bought the team. Unfortunately for me, it was a much
Speaker 2: more complicated process. There were three steps. There were two
Speaker 2: hundred acres of parking that was owned by one group,
Speaker 2: and I got that land under option in eighty five.
Speaker 2: That went to ninety five, and coincidentally, I bought the
Speaker 2: team in ninety four, so I was able to exercise
Speaker 2: the option, but that option on the land was for parking.
Speaker 2: In eighty eight eighty nine, the stadium went into bankruptcy
Speaker 2: because of the Michael Jackson tour. I at that time,
Speaker 2: Victor Kayam owned the team. He bid seventeen million dollars
Speaker 2: for the stadium. I bid twenty five. The judge awarded
Speaker 2: it to us. When I bought the stadium in eighty eight,
Speaker 2: it had a lease that went till one with an
Speaker 2: operating covenant which means the team never move without our permission,
Speaker 2: and finally in ninety four, which was the latter. Getting
Speaker 2: close to near the end of the lease, they wanted
Speaker 2: to move the team to Saint Louis. I wouldn't let
Speaker 2: James Orthwine, who owned the team. He was part of
Speaker 2: the bud family, Budweiser family, and they had a publicly
Speaker 2: finance stadium in Saint Louis. They wanted to move it,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't let him.
Speaker 1: Do That worked out, okay for you. Your late wife
Speaker 1: wasn't was a little nervous. I guess.
Speaker 2: Before I went out to buy the team from Orthwine
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis, she said, what are you going to pay?
Speaker 2: And I said, well, the right numbers one fifteen, I
Speaker 2: might go to one, twenty one, twenty two. And when
Speaker 2: I came back and told her that I went to
Speaker 2: one seventy, she went nuts. And Orthwine's lawyer from Saint
Speaker 2: Louis called me and said, we will offer you seventy
Speaker 2: five million dollars to let the lease expire and let
Speaker 2: us move. And he called me at home, and my
Speaker 2: wife heard that. She said, wait a minute. You paid
Speaker 2: twenty five million dollars for this. He's paying your seventy
Speaker 2: five million dollars. You'll still own the stadium, You'll get
Speaker 2: another team, And I said, no. I remember when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, my team, my baseball team was the
Speaker 2: Boston Braves. They played at bu Field. They moved and
Speaker 2: they never came back, and I was heartsick. And that's
Speaker 2: that's why it wasn't about the money. It was about
Speaker 2: the passion.
Speaker 1: One of the other things you're passionate about is the
Speaker 1: need to fight anti Semitism. You've created a foundation against
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, to fight against anti Semitism. Why are you
Speaker 1: so passionate about that cause? And is anti Semitism on
Speaker 1: the rise?
Speaker 2: I think anti Semitism is on the rise, and it's
Speaker 2: very disturbing to me because it's symbolic of really it
Speaker 2: starts with anti Semitism, then that hatred goes against every
Speaker 2: other minority community, whether it's the Black community, the lgp
Speaker 2: QT plus, or the Asian community. And you know, the
Speaker 2: Jewish people in this country represent a little over two
Speaker 2: percent of the population, but receive over fifty percent of
Speaker 2: the religious hate crimes. And there are many things going
Speaker 2: on in America today that remind me of what went
Speaker 2: on in Nazi Germany in the thirties. You know, it
Speaker 2: had book burning in Nazi Germany where they couldn't read
Speaker 2: Albert Einstein or Helen Keller or other kinds of books.
Speaker 2: This is America, the greatest country in the world, and
Speaker 2: those kinds of things shouldn't be going on.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you have a pin on you That pin,
Speaker 1: I guess is a pin for your foundation. What does
Speaker 1: it represent?
Speaker 2: It's a blue square that we wanted to find something
Speaker 2: that symbolized pushing back against hatred, and that is a
Speaker 2: symbol of unity and solidarity against all kinds of hate.
Speaker 2: And I'm technologically incompetent, but even I could get this
Speaker 2: blue This little emoji is on everybody's cell phone an iPad,
Speaker 2: and you can put it on every message. Every email
Speaker 2: I sent has this little blue square.
Speaker 1: So you made a very large contribution to this foundation
Speaker 1: to help enhance its reputation and people knowing about it.
Speaker 1: And I assume other people are contributing as well.
Speaker 2: We've had amazing support our family and now has committed
Speaker 2: over seventy five million dollars to a Bank of America
Speaker 2: has committed ten million dollars. There are many families who
Speaker 2: have made seven figure gifts. I shouldn't say their names
Speaker 2: unless they give us permission. But we've touched a nerve.
Speaker 2: There's something going on in this country where people want
Speaker 2: to push back and are looking for a vehicle. And
Speaker 2: I think this little blue square, it's hope it goes
Speaker 2: viral and push us back against all hatred and bigotry
Speaker 2: and let us preserve the American dream that I think
Speaker 2: both you and I have experienced.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Israel for a moment. You were
Speaker 1: awarded what is called the Jewish Nobel Prize. It's called
Speaker 1: the Genesis Prize for contributions if you've made to Israel
Speaker 1: and the Jewish people over many, many years. So did
Speaker 1: you ever visit Israel as a young person? Was that
Speaker 1: very important to you or were you just not that
Speaker 1: connected to Israel?
Speaker 2: When I got married, someone gave us a honeymoon gift
Speaker 2: of a trip to the Holy Land. I went there
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty three when the country was fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: And so I've watched the advancement, you know, it's what
Speaker 2: that was sixty years ago. Wow, And the country is amazing.
Speaker 2: And I think what Israel has done technology wise and
Speaker 2: the contributions it's made have been tremendous.
Speaker 1: So the secret to your success is prayer then obviously
Speaker 1: you say you've been praying a lot.
Speaker 2: Or prayer is very spirituality, prayer and giving thanks to
Speaker 2: the Almighty God, and understanding how privileged we are and
Speaker 2: if we have our health and can pay our bills.
Speaker 1: Now, how many grandchildren do you have? I have eight grandchildren,
Speaker 1: and do they come to the games.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's the one thing and why I
Speaker 2: would never sell this or do anything. As your family
Speaker 2: gets dispersed and everyone goes different places, it's the one thing,
Speaker 2: you know. I used to take my sons to the games.
Speaker 2: I used to get them out of religious school on
Speaker 2: Sundays without their mother's knowledge. And we come in and
Speaker 2: we tailgate here and spend the day here and get
Speaker 2: to know all our neighbors who sat in the seats
Speaker 2: around us, and it's lasting memories.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen.