Jonathan Kraft | |
---|---|
Born | Jonathan Ashford Kraft March 4, 1964 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Alma mater | Williams College (BA) Harvard University (MBA) |
Occupation | Businessman |
Known for | President of The Kraft Group President of the New England Patriots |
Spouse | Patricia Lipoma |
Children | 3 |
Parent(s) | Robert Kraft Myra Hiatt |
Relatives | Daniel Kraft (brother) Josh Kraft (brother) Jacob Hiatt (grandfather) |
American football career | |
New England Patriots | |
Position: | President |
Career history | |
As an executive: | |
Career highlights and awards | |
Jonathan Ashford Kraft (born March 4, 1964) is an American businessman. He is president of The Kraft Group, the holding company of the Kraft family's business interests. He is also the president of the New England Patriots and investor-operator of the New England Revolution. [1] [2]
Kraft was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family, one of four children of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his late wife Myra Kraft. [1] [2] Robert Kraft is worth an estimated $4.8 billion, according to Forbes and ranked as 108th richest person in 2015. [3] Kraft attended the Belmont Hill School for high school. In 1986, Kraft graduated from Williams College with a bachelor's degree in history. He served on Williams' board of trustees from 2003 until 2015. [4] After working as a consultant at Bain & Company for two years, Kraft earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1990. [5]
In 1994, Kraft helped his family create a plan to purchase the New England Patriots. [6] Since his family's purchase of the team, [7] Kraft has held the titles of vice president, [8] vice chairman [9] and president. [10]
Within the National Football League, Kraft has served on multiple committees, including the Digital Media and Business Ventures committees. [11] In March 2006, when the National Football League Players Association and the NFL were deadlocked in contract negotiations, Kraft helped design a revenue sharing plan that was used for that version of the collective bargaining agreement. [12]
In 1995, Major League Soccer was started. One of the inaugural teams in the league was the Revolution. Kraft has been the co-owner/investor of the Revolution, along with his father, since its inception. [13] In 2002, the Revolution played in their first final against the Galaxy in the MLS Cup in front of a record crowd of more than 61,000. [14] The final was held at Gillette Stadium, previously named CMGI Field, in Foxborough, Massachusetts. [14] The match had a record crowd and the Revolution lost. [15] They made four more MLS Cup appearances in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2014. [16]
Kraft was also an owner/investor of the San Jose Earthquakes from 1999 to 2000 when the Kraft Group owned the team. [17] He has been attempting to build a Boston area soccer specific stadium unsuccessfully since 2006. [17]
Kraft has served on the board of trustees of Massachusetts General Hospital since 2010 and was named chair in 2019 after the departure of Cathy Minehan. [18]
In March 2020, Kraft and his father offered the use of the Patriots team airplane to Massachusetts to deliver more than a million N95 masks from Shenzhen, China for use by medical professionals to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Some of the supplies landed in Boston on April 2, 2020, after several weeks of preparation. [19]
In 1995, Kraft married Patricia Lipoma in a Jewish ceremony at the Chestnut Hill home of his parents. [20] [21] She is a convert to Judaism. [21] He has three children, two sons and a daughter. [6] [20]
In 2023, Boston magazine ranked Kraft and his brothers Daniel and Josh at number 11 on its list of the "most influential Bostonians", grouping these three Kraft brothers as a single entity. [22]
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The Patriots play home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Boston. The franchise is owned by Robert Kraft, who purchased the team in 1994. As of 2023, the Patriots are tied for the third-most valuable sports team in the world and have sold out every home game since 1994.
The New England Revolution, informally known as Foxborough Revolution in other countries, are an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having competed in the league since its inaugural season.
Gillette Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Foxborough, Massachusetts, United States, which is 22 miles (35 km) southwest of downtown Boston, Massachusetts and 18 miles (29 km) northeast of Providence, Rhode Island. It serves as the home stadium and administrative offices for both the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL) and the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (MLS). It opened in 2002, replacing the adjacent Foxboro Stadium. It also served as the home venue for the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Minutemen football team in 2012 and 2013, while on-campus Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium underwent renovations; it continued to serve as a part-time home venue for higher attendance UMass games through 2018. Gillette Stadium's seating capacity is 64,628, including 5,876 club seats and 82 luxury suites.
Foxboro Stadium, originally Schaefer Stadium and later Sullivan Stadium, was an outdoor stadium in the New England region of the United States, located in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It opened in 1971 and served as the home of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL) for 31 seasons and also as the first home venue for the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (MLS) from 1996 to 2002. The stadium was the site of several games in both the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. Foxboro Stadium was demolished in 2002 and replaced by Gillette Stadium and the Patriot Place shopping center.
William Stephen Belichick is an American sports analyst and football coach. Widely regarded as one of the greatest head coaches of all time, he holds numerous coaching records, including the record of most Super Bowl wins (six) as a head coach, all with the New England Patriots, along with two more during his time as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, for a record eight combined total Super Bowl victories as coach and coordinator. A renowned American football historian, Belichick is often referred to as a "student of the game" with a deep knowledge of the intricacies of each player position. During his tenure with the Patriots, Belichick was a central figure as the head coach and de facto general manager during the franchise's dynasty from 2001 to 2019.
Gilbert A. Santos was an American radio play-by-play announcer based in the Boston area. He called games for the New England Patriots of the National Football League and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association, served as the morning sports reporter for WBZ radio in Boston. He was an inductee of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Robert Kenneth Kraft is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Kraft Group, a diversified holding company with assets in paper and packaging, sports and entertainment, real estate development, and a private equity portfolio. Since 1994, Kraft has owned the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He also owns the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (MLS), which he founded in 1996, and the esport-based Boston Uprising, which Kraft founded in 2017. As of July 2024, he has an estimated net worth of US$11.1 billion according to Forbes.
This article contains an in-depth explanation of the history of the New England Patriots, a professional American football team that competes in the National Football League (NFL).
Boston, Massachusetts, is home to several major professional sports franchises. They include the Red Sox (baseball), the Celtics, and the Bruins. The New England Patriots and the New England Revolution play at Gillette Stadium in nearby Foxborough, Massachusetts. Boston is one of eleven U.S. cities to have teams from the five major American professional team sports.
Pat Patriot, commonly referred to as "Pat The Patriot," is the mascot of the New England Patriots, a National Football League (NFL) franchise based in Foxborough, Massachusetts. He is depicted as a soldier of the American Revolution. The logo version of Pat wears a tricorne hat and a Continental Army uniform. This was the Patriots' official insignia until 1993, when it was replaced by the current logo which is known as "Flying Elvis". Today, Pat Patriot is used for throwback merchandise as well as an alternate logo across the Patriots branding. Logo Pat was created by Worcester Telegram - Evening Gazette cartoonist Phil Bissell in 1960.
The 1993 New England Patriots season was the franchise’s 34th season overall and 24th in the National Football League (NFL). The Patriots finished fourth in the AFC East Division with a record of five wins and eleven losses.
The Kraft Group, LLC, is a group of privately held companies in the professional sports, manufacturing, and real estate development industries doing business in 90 countries. Founded in 1998 by American businessman Robert Kraft as a holding company for various interests he had acquired since 1968, it is based in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
William Hallissey Sullivan Jr. was an American businessman who owned the Boston Patriots franchise from their inception in the American Football League until their sale, as the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL), to Victor Kiam in 1988.
The Spygate scandal was a National Football League (NFL) controversy during the 2007 season, in which it was discovered that the New England Patriots were videotaping opposing coaches' signals during games under head coach Bill Belichick. It began when the New England Patriots were disciplined by the NFL for videotaping New York Jets' defensive coaches' signals from an unauthorized location during a September 9, 2007 game. Videotaping opposing coaches is not illegal in the NFL, per se; there are designated areas allowed by the league to do such taping. Because the Patriots were instead videotaping the Jets' coaches from their own sideline during the game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell deemed it to be in violation of league rules, stating that the act represented a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid long-standing rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field. After an investigation, the NFL fined Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 for his role in the incident, fined the Patriots $250,000, and docked the team their original first-round selection in the 2008 NFL draft which would have been the 31st pick of the draft.
Myra Hiatt Kraft was an American philanthropist and the wife of New England Patriots and New England Revolution owner Robert Kraft.
Matthew Wilson Slater is an American football coach and former wide receiver who is working as a special assistant to the head coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He previously played in the NFL for 16 seasons with the Patriots. A special teams player for most of his career, he is considered one of the greatest gunners of all time.
Andrew Wasynczuk is a senior lecturer of business administration for Harvard Business School.
American football is a sport played at the amateur and international competition levels in Israel. The Israel Football League (IFL) is the highest level of competition in Israel, although there are multiple flag football leagues, a high school league and a youth league. All forms of American football in Israel are governed by American Football in Israel (IFL). As of February 2017, there are 1,350 active football players living in Israel.
On October 3, 2021, during week 4 of the 2021 NFL season, the defending Super Bowl LV champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the hosting New England Patriots by a score of 19–17 on NBC Sunday Night Football. The game was highly anticipated as Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady played his first game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts against his former team, his long-time former coach Bill Belichick, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Brady had previously spent 20 seasons with the Patriots between 2000 and 2019, leading New England to a league-tying record of six championships. NBC Sports marketed the game with the tagline "The Return" in promotional material.
Joshua Kraft is an American nonprofit executive who is the head of Kraft Family Philanthropies and board chairman of the National Urban League's Eastern Massachusetts chapter. Kraft previously worked for twelve years as CEO of the Boys & Girls Club's Boston chapter. Kraft is a son of Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots NFL team.