Robert Kraft Just Sold A Minority Stake Of The New England Patriots At A Whopping $9 Billion Valuation

The circle of NFL owners is quite exclusive. There are only 32 teams; while some franchises have minority ownership stakes involved, that means only 32 people or families are running their respective clubs. It also means those owners are exceedingly wealthy. The NFL is still the most lucrative sports league in North America, and team valuations have continued to grow at absurd rates.

Just look at Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots.

Kraft bought the Patriots in 1994 for $172 million. And he just agreed to sell 8% of the NFL team to two ownership groups. The valuation of that deal? $9 billion. In other words, Robert just received $720 million for just a small slice of his football empire.

The deal will actually increase the Patriots' value even more, since the money obtained in the sale will remain on the team's balance sheet. Investor and businessman Dean Metropoulos, who previously owned Pabst Brewing Company, bought a 5% stake in the team. Sixth Street Partners purchased the other 3%.

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When Kraft took over the Patriots, the team was one of the laughingstocks of the league. Within a decade, New England found a combination that led them through much of the 21st century: Tom Brady at quarterback and Bill Belichick as the head coach. The Patriots won six Super Bowls, which is tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most in NFL history. As the wins kept piling up, Kraft watched the value of his team experience a meteoric rise.

Both Brady and Belichick have moved on—Brady is now the lead analyst on FOX and a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, while Belichick is in his first season as head coach at the University of North Carolina. And the Patriots haven't been able to reach the levels of success they once had. The team has only had one winning record and one postseason appearance in the past five years, which ended abruptly with a 30-point loss in the wild-card round to the AFC East divisional rival Buffalo Bills.

Kraft also owns the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer and Gillette Stadium. The stadium got a $250 million renovation in 2023.

The Patriots' sale is the latest in a group of deals occurring as this season has kicked off. Julia Koch purchased a 10% share of the New York Giants at a $10.3 billion valuation, Pete Briger Jr. bought 3.2% of the San Francisco 49ers at an $8.6 billion valuation, and the Bears sold 2.35% of the team to existing owners in a deal that valued the team at $8.9 billion.

A decade from now, all of these numbers might seem quaint. But Kraft still gets to maintain control of his team while getting a windfall of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. That's tough to turn down.