I have trawled the internet trying to get some more info, and then stumbled across this on another forum:
While Mike Jefferies is the "public face" in the consortium, along with another fellow Liverpool-native, the name you should be interested in is Robert Kraft. Kraft is the current owner of the New England Patriots NFL football club in the U.S., and is an investor/operater of the New England Revolution Soccer Club, currently coached by none other than former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol.
I've already posted the following in the forums on Koptalk, but figured they'd be of interest to you and others on the ThisIsAnfield forums. I figured the following would provide some additional context. In case you're curious, I'm a New England Revolution season ticket-holder, have been an active member of their primary independent supporters association from year one, and have written extensively for a respected former club fanzine that, I kid you not, was actually created by Liverpool supporter and native.
Robert Kraft is the opposite of Malcolm Glazer, and it would not at all be inaccurate to describe him as the most respected owner in the (NFL), and one of the most respected owners of any professional sports franchise in the United States. He is an exceptional (self-made) businessman, places a high value on success, but knows well enough to leave the day-to-day operations to those people best able to produce it.
Kraft is a native of Brookline, Massachusetts (suburb of Boston), attended public schools, and was accepted to the prestigious Columbia University on an academic scholarship, where he also played American football as a student. After receiving his undergraduate degree, he was accepted at and graduated from the Harvard Business School where he earned a Master's degree in Business Administration. Kraft is a trustee of Columbia University, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and is active with many other civic and philanthropic organizations.
Kraft is Founder and Chairman of the Kraft Group, a holding company based in Boston, Massachusetts with business interests centered in three specific areas: paper and packaging; sports and entertainment; and venture investing. These holdings include the Rand-Whitney Group, a number of companies involved in corrugated container manufacturing, and the International Forest Products Group of Companies, a trader of paper commodities with offices in Vancouver, London, Gothenburg, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Kuala Lampur, while doing business in over 80 countries around the world. The Kraft Group is also the controlling shareholder of Carmel Container Systems Ltd., which is one of the largest packaging companies in the Middle East. The Kraft Group's sports and entertainment holdings include the New England Patriots of the NFL, and the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer.
But here's the thing, and this is undeniable: Kraft is a fan fan first, a real dyed-in-the-wool supporter of "his club," the New England Patriots. While he now takes in games from an executive box in Gillette Stadium, he's been a season ticket-holder since 1971, this back when he had cheap, uncomfortable, aluminum bench-style goal-line seats at the old Foxboro Stadium. I.e., Kraft is not some nouveau-riche cult of personality type like Chelsea's Roman Abramovich, or perhaps even Malcom Glazer. Kraft is an individual who, had he grown up in Liverpool, would have been singing himself hoarse in The Kop at Anfield.
Kraft bought the (then-troubled) New England Patriots franchise in February of 1994 for a then record of $172 million, a sum thought by many to be well more than he could, or should have paid for, preventing the club from moving to St. Louis, this after going through two owners and three coaches in the previous six years while winning only 19 of 80 games. The learning curve was steeper at the beginning, and had to face-up to a number of daunting issues: the team played in a bad stadium -- the worst in the league according to some, he got caught up in a nasty and highly public divorce with a popular and successful head coach of the Patriots in Bill Parcells, he had to absorb massive contracts paid to players who didn't pan out, there were front-office struggles, player conduct issues, and some dalliances with moving the franchise (to elsewhere in the New England region) that were tied to plans for a new stadium.
Here's what's happened in the ten years since he's bought the Patriots. As of 2004, the Patriots has been to three Super Bowls (League championship), have won two of the last three, and is currently tied for the best record in the NFL as of December 2004. They've done this with a total club payroll (in 2004) tied for 23rd in the league out of 32 total teams, and opened this season ranked 25th in player salaries at a combined total of $81,695,050. He invested $325 million of his family's money into building the state-of-the-art, 68,756-seat Gillette Stadium, a privately financed stadium (one of only three in the entire league) completed in 2002.
Image of the old Foxboro Stadium:
Capacity: 60,292
Image of the new Gillette Stadium:
Capacity: 68,756
The season-ticket base for the Patriots, which had reached a low of 17,635 in 1991 while standing at 28,954 in 1993, jumped to 42,726 in '94 and 56,696 a year later. It has since been capped at 61,759, with a paid waiting list of more than 50,000. The Patriots have sold out every game in 1994 and every one since, now a streak of 103 games.
Revenues... and this is no fabrication, have helped increase the value of the Patriots to $861 million dollars, fourth in the league, this according to Forbes magazine.
An industry source having recently been cited in a regional New England newspaper -- one who's had direct business dealings with Kraft, described him in this way: "He's a tough negotiator but fair. He's definitely a man of his word. If he shakes your hand and says it will happen, it happens. But he's a businessman and everything he does is geared around revenue generation so he can spend back on his team for fans, players and the experience. He's not ruthless but he's very tough..."
On the surface, his investment in the New England Revolution seems less a success story, and for any number of reasons, it has been.
On October 17, 1995, Robert Kraft and his son Jonathan became investor/operators of the New England Revolution, one of the 10 original organizations of Major League Soccer. The "franchise fee" at the time was a paltry $5 million dollars. While the club has historically underachieved on the pitch, and due to league control of all player contracts, including a fixed (and quite small) salary cap, Kraft (nor do any of the other League owners) have the luxury of operating their soccer (football) clubs consistent with most those around the world -- they can't go out and splash millions on a player, and as a result, the quality of the league does suffer somewhat, not matter the fact that it is now regularly producing players competing in some of the world's most competitive leagues, from the English Premiership, to the Dutch Eredivisie. The Revolution have been to one League (MLS) Cup Final in their nine years of existence, three League (MLS) Cup Semi-Finals, and one Open Cup Final, the 2nd oldest knock-out competition in the world that is the U.S.-equivalent of the F.A. Cup. While attendance has noticeably slipped over the past few seasons, this down to a shade under 13,000 per match, the club has averaged as high as 21,000, and for purposes of the 2005 season, the Krafts have slashed ticket prices back to what they were in 1996, a difference of almost 40%.
The current coach of the Revolution is former Liverpool player Steve Nicol, his assistant coach being former England international Paul Mariner.
The Krafts have hosted the MLS Cup match in their stadium(s) three different times, starting with the inaugural one in 1996, and seeing the Revolution turn out in the 2002 Cup, held on their home field at Gillette Stadium, losing a heart-breaker to Los Angeles on a golden goal in overtime in front of 61,316 fans, still the largest attendance figure for a soccer game in New England history. Kraft has also brought 1994 Men's FIFA World Cup matches to Foxboro (and regularly gets World Cup Qualifiers), as well as the 1999 Women's FIFA World Cup. The Krafts have also worked to bring high profile friendly international matches to Foxboro, with teams including Barcelona, Juventus, Fiorentina, Benfica, Sporting, and Ajax having played there.
As for their plans (if any) with Liverpool? Well, if Malcom Glazer is the wrong choice for United supporters, Kraft could very well be the right one for Liverpool supporters.
Below you'll find an article on Kraft that should give a good sense of the man, written by one of the better Boston sports writers. Enjoy.
MR. FIX-IT IN 10 YEARS, KRAFT HAS TURNED RISKY BUSINESS VENTURE INTO NEAR- DYNASTY IN NFL
John Powers, The Boston Globe
25 January 2004
Copyright © 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
FOXBOROUGH - It was never about the risk-versus-reward ratio, about the half-billion dollars he'd sunk into a rickety football franchise. If it had been, Robert Kraft would have let James Orthwein out of his stadium lease, pocketed $75 million and watched the Patriots mosey off to Missouri.
It was, Kraft says, always about the fantasy, cockeyed as it might have seemed - a winning team playing in a magnificent stadium with every seat filled every Sunday, every game on TV and the Super Bowl at the end.
"You dream about winning a championship, but you never know if it's going to happen," the Patriots owner mused from behind his desk, two days before the team left for Houston and a date with the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII a week from today. "For us to be doing this for the third time in eight years . . ."
A decade and a week after Kraft bought the club for a record $170 million, his starred-and-striped players are favored to win their second NFL title in three seasons. Gillette Stadium (and its demolished predecessor) have been sold out for 104 consecutive games and season tickets have been capped at 61,759, with a paid waiting list of more than 50,000.
What once was fantasy has become fact. "I've got nothing but admiration for what the Kraft family has been able to achieve," says Philadelphia owner Jeff Lurie, who grew up in the Boston area and knows the franchise's checkered history by heart.
For the first time in the franchise's 44 years, the words "Patriots" and "dynasty" are appearing in the same sentence. "A dynasty is not one championship," counters Jonathan Kraft, team vice chairman and the owner's eldest son. "You have to win multiple championships. We haven't done that yet."
What the Patriots have done under the Krafts' supervision is establish stability and a commitment to quality from season to season. As significant as their three Super Bowl appearances is the fact that the team has reached the playoffs six times in 10 years and missed a seventh on a tiebreaker.
"The No. 1 thing is, you have to field a good football team," says Pittsburgh owner Dan Rooney, who helped broker the political deal that led to the building of Gillette Stadium. "They may not win every year, but you have to make sure they have the opportunity."
The league always thought the Patriots had the makings of a top- level team. "It was a franchise that was ready to emerge," says Lurie. "There was no reason why it couldn't happen in New England."
Seeing the potential
It was all about stability. There had been brief, brilliant starbursts - most notably the 1985 run to the Super Bowl. But when Kraft bought them, the Patriots had been through two owners and three coaches in six years and had won only 19 of their previous 80 games.
Yet they still were drawing more than 45,000 diehards to the least-hospitable facility in the league. "The thing on the balance sheet that nobody noticed was the potential fan base," Robert Kraft says. "If you understood the passion of the people . . ."
Kraft had held season tickets on the goal line since 1971 and he understood how starved the fans were for a winner. "I knew how my winters were ruined," he says, "when other teams were still playing and I was going into withdrawal."
What convinced Kraft to buy the team, his son says, was the final game of the 1993 season, when the Patriots beat Miami at home in overtime for their fourth straight victory after a 1-11 start.
"The crowd was just going nuts," Jonathan says. "They were just dying to have stability and commitment to a championship. Robert turned to me and said, `There's no way I'm not buying this franchise.' "
Kraft had wanted to buy it ever since cash-strapped founder Billy Sullivan began talking about selling it in the mid-1980s. That was why he'd bought an option to the land around the stadium with partner Steve Karp, purchased the stadium out of bankruptcy, then bought out Karp's interest.
"If we really wanted to own the team, we needed to find a way to have a competitive edge," Kraft says. "It was step by step, taking these risks."
The purchase price, Kraft says, was more than $50 million beyond what economic analysts had estimated for a high end. "My wife Myra thought I'd gone nuts buying the team," he confesses. "But there are moments in your life when you do things even though they're crazy but you think they're right. This was what I dreamed of as a kid, so I just decided to do it. Was it nuts at the time? Yes. It was not a prudent decision."
Though father and son high-fived each other on the plane ride back from St. Louis after completing the deal, they realized that all they'd done was make a down payment. "We bought the chance to fix something that was broken in a lot of places," says Jonathan.
The stadium needed a massive overhaul, if not a wrecking ball. The payroll was the league's lowest. What the Patriots did have, though, was one of the league's top coaches in Bill Parcells, a franchise quarterback in Drew Bledsoe, and an impending league cap to keep player salaries from spiraling out of sight.
Sticking to the plan
Those were the key stable elements that led to the first Super Bowl appearance in a decade in 1997. When the split came between owner and coach, that was the issue - stability.
"Bill was a great coach and he did a lot for the franchise," Kraft acknowledges. "But at the end of each year he'd say, `I don't know if I'm going to be here next year.' "
Kraft, though, was in for the long haul, ready to ante up several hundred million dollars more for a stadium, with the rockiest days still ahead. The roughest patch came during the autumn of 2001, when the Patriots started out 1-3 after a 5-11 season, coach Bill Belichick was under fire, and Kraft had a $325 million hole in the ground next door. "It was brutal," Kraft recalls. "A lot of sweaty palms and sleepless nights."
Hiring Belichick had been a mistake, people told him, especially after Miami had stomped the Patriots by three touchdowns in October. A turnaround might take time, but Belichick had a system and a plan, Kraft concluded. "I believed in Bill," he says. "I'd call him and say, whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
That was how Kraft ran his other businesses: Hire the best people and give them autonomy, but hold them accountable. "The thing I think the Krafts have done really well is to surround themselves with excellent people," says Lurie.
The owner's job, as Kraft sees it, is to put the team in the best position to win. The football decisions - drafting and signing, trading and cutting - are left to the football people. "Bob hired a good coach and he's smart enough to let him do the job," says Rooney. "At some places, that doesn't happen."
Trading Bledsoe to Buffalo two years ago was a football decision. So was releasing star safety Lawyer Milloy just before the season. "I trust Bill's judgment to do things that are right for the team," says Kraft. "He explained to me what he was doing and we supported him. Did I feel bad as a fan? Absolutely."
But with the Patriots on a club-record run of 14 straight victories, nobody's second-guessing football decisions. Since the loss to Miami two seasons ago, New England is 38-11, with a 21-4 record at home, where the high-decibel spectators and the low- reading thermometer have made Gillette Stadium a nasty playoff venue.
That's one reason why Kraft nixed the idea of a dome when the design was drawn up. "Why did the Bills make it to four straight Super Bowls? Because people had to go through Buffalo," he says. "People don't want to go to Green Bay."
The fans, Kraft says, are a huge part of why the Patriots will be playing in February. Problem is, only 10,000 of them will be inside Reliant Stadium. That means 50,000 season ticket-holders will be watching on TV. "We're going to the Super Bowl and we can't give them tickets," Kraft says. "I apologize to those fans."
A decade ago, who would have imagined a waiting list nearly twice the size of the 1993 season-ticket base? "It's what I call a high- class problem," Kraft says.
It's one of the challenges of success. Now that the Patriots have fulfilled their fantasies - the championship ring, the new stadium, sellouts all the way to the horizon - what do they do? More of what they've been doing, Kraft muses. "You run a business for the bad times," he says. "That's why you give quality."
The list of deposed NFL dynasties is long - Green Bay, Miami, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Dallas, Denver. Who would have predicted a year ago that both Super Bowl teams would go on to losing seasons? "It's hard to stay on top in this business," says Kraft. "The system is built to bring you back to the middle."
So the mission is to stay ahead of the curve, to establish an enduring standard of quality. "The whole thing now is about legacy," Kraft says. "We would like to become an example of what other teams would like to follow."
It isn't about a dynasty - not until there are rings for the whole hand. Ten years ago, when the Patriots were America's chumps, the idea of winning just one Super Bowl was nirvana. But their owner won't say no to a second. "Winning championships," Robert Kraft says, "is addictive."
Intresting, I am sure you will agree. Even more intresting is the fact that I have heard, (although I was not able to find any quoteable source on t'internet) that our very own King Kenny will be employed as the public face of the L4 group should they wish to formalise a bid.
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