Kraft is the owner of the New England Patriots football team, which he bought in 1994. Through his Foxboro, Massachusetts-based Kraft Group, he also owns Gillette Stadium, the adjacent Patriot Place mall, Revolution soccer team, paper companies Rand-Whitney, International Forest Products and half of New-Indy paper.
The bulk of Kraft's wealth is in the New England Patriots, the National Football League franchise he purchased all of in 1994, according to the team website. The team, one of the most valuable in the NFL, is valued at $6.7 billion based on an August 2023 report by valuation consultants Sportico.
Through his holding company Kraft Group, he also owns paper companies Rand-Whitney and half of New-Indy. The valuations are based on average recycled paperboard prices and comparable values for other mills and box plants. Kraft has 250,000 tons of capacity at wholly owned Rand-Whitney and 750,000 tons at New-Indy.
The billionaire also owns the New England Revolution soccer team, which is valued at $500 million based on a January 2024 report by valuation consultants Sportico. His stock ownership is taken from public disclosures.
Stacey James, a Kraft spokesperson, didn't return phone calls and emails seeking comment.
Robert Kraft was born in 1941 in Brookline, Massachusetts, an enclave adjacent to Boston where his father was a textile worker and synagogue leader. Kraft attended Columbia University, where he played on the freshman football squad. On a visit home in 1962, he found himself sitting next to Myra Hiatt in a Boston delicatessen. The pair would marry the next year.
After receiving his degree in 1963, he went on to earn a graduate degree at Harvard Business School. During that period he began attending games of the Patriots, the Boston franchise of the upstart American Football League and the team he would buy some three decades later.
Kraft's career began in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he took a job at Rand-Whitney Group, a packaging company owned by Myra's father. After three years in the business, Kraft acquired a majority stake in the company through a leveraged buyout in 1968. He expanded his paper and packaging business by founding International Paper Products in 1972, a paper commodities trading house that is now to one of the largest U.S. exporters as measured by shipping container volume, according to the Journal of Commerce.
The billionaire's path to football team ownership began in 1985, when he purchased an option on the land surrounding the team's Sullivan Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and then, in 1988, the stadium itself out of bankruptcy court. He paid a then-record $172 million to buy the Patriots in 1994. Under his ownership, the franchise shifted from being one of the least successful football teams to the most successful, winning six Super Bowls since 2001.
Kraft has four sons -- Jonathan, Robert, Joshua and David -- from his 50-year marriage to Myra, who died of cancer in 2011. He married Dana Blumberg in 2022.