John Henry and Robert Kraft are the two most successful owners in modern day North American sports.
There really isn’t much sense in debating that. A combined 10 championships won in a 17-year period from 2001 to 2018. Six Super Bowl trophies for Kraft’s New England Patriots. Four World Series trophies for Henry’s Boston Red Sox. Feats both unmatched in both the NFL and MLB — or the NBA and NHL, for that matter — in that timeframe.
There have been some similarities between their successes. Both have brought in some of the smartest minds in the sport to handle day-to-day operations — for Henry, Theo Epstein, and for Kraft, Bill Belichick. Both have spent big in the past two decades to turn Boston and New England from the laughing stock of the sports world into the best sports city in America. Yet there’s one key difference that separates the two…
Henry has treated the Red Sox like a business. Kraft has treated the Patriots like a family.
Multiple times throughout Thursday’s press conferences announcing the firing of Belichick after 24 seasons, Kraft likened his relationship with Belichick to a “marriage” — you have ups, and you have downs. At one point, Kraft called his family the “custodians” of the Patriots franchise.
What does Kraft mean by that? It’s simple, he might own the Patriots franchise… but the Patriots belong to the people of New England.
As a native Bostonian and former Patriots season ticket holder himself, Kraft has a unique perspective that isn’t all too common in the world of sports management. He’s from here. He’s one of us. He’s seen the Patriots at their worst, and that’s what drove him to build the Patriots up to their best.
Henry was born in Quincy, Illinois. He grew up a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and Stan “The Man” Musial. He had no idea what it was like to endure the agony of an 86-year World Series drought like so many generations of New Englanders had. (I can’t say that I as a 32-year-old native New Englander ever fully experienced the anguish of growing up in a place once dubbed “Loserville,” either. But I still experienced the crushing blow of the 2003 Red Sox season (how is Aaron Boone still managing the Yankees? I don’t get it…) and grew up with some Celtics and Bruins teams that were mediocre at best (although I will ride or die with the Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce Celtics every day of the week…).
When Henry purchased the Red Sox in 2002, does anyone actually believe that he cared deeply about ending the Curse of the Bambino? No... (heck, before he owned the Red Sox, he was actually a part owner of the Yankees!). Sure, he wanted to win in Boston, but he wanted to win as a way to to grow his investment — something he certainly has done. Henry purchased the Red Sox for a then-record $660 million from the Yawkey family. Today, the Red Sox are valued at $4.5 billion.
Henry was driven by a desire for business success. Kraft was driven by his love for New England. Both can work and lead to success so long as you’re winning and still invested (emotionally speaking) in your team’s success. Even though Henry’s portfolio is named “Fenway Sports Group,” the Red Sox today are just a piece of the puzzle along with Liverpool F.C., the Pittsburgh Penguins, RFK Racing and something called TMRW Golf League’s “Boston Common Golf.” (The irony there, of course, being that Henry has nothing in common with the common Bostonian…)
For Kraft, the Patriots remain the whole picture. Sure, Kraft certainly has other business ventures, but not in the same industry as does Henry outside his primary market. Does anything scream “I’m just in it for the money” more than using Boston’s own famed ballpark to “host” his newly-purchased hockey team in a Winter Classic game against a team that actually plays in Boston?
And I’m not here to convince you that Kraft doesn’t care about the money or making a buck. He does, very much so. Kraft shouldn’t be free of blame for the Patriots’ failures, either. And as far as Kraft’s national reputation goes following some high-profile scandals on and off the field, Henry probably has him beat there…
But watching Kraft, now 82 years old, stand next to Belichick at Thursday’s presser before addressing the media and later taking questions hammered home to me the point I’m trying to make. Kraft looked like he had just seen a ghost. It’s clear that he realized the weightiness of the move he was making in firing Belichick, and it actually seemed like he agonized over it.
Do you think Henry actually agonized over the decision to fire (then later reportedly slander) Terry Francona? Or how about trading Mookie Betts? Not re-signing Xander Bogaerts? Firing Chaim Bloom? No way. These were simply business decisions to him, not decisions that would actually reverberate throughout an entire six-state region…
The funny thing is, Henry has earned himself the right to call himself a Bostonian and New Englander if he wanted to. He is forever engrained in the culture of Boston sports, and again, is the best owner in Red Sox history. The problem is, he doesn’t seem interested in the title in the least…
I used to say this about Kyrie Irving when he replaced Isaiah Thomas as the All-Star guard with the Celtics. Irving was a superstar who played in Boston, but Thomas was a Boston superstar. One embraced the city and everything it meant, while one only wore the jersey and only prioritized his own interests.
All this, in essence, is why you get routinely booed, John. It’s not because fans are ungrateful for what you’ve done in the past for Red Sox. They aren’t. It’s because your ownership group raised the bar of success in this town, and now that you’re no longer willing to back it up in the same way you once did, fans simply aren’t having it. You’re the victim of your own success. You’ve lived long enough to see yourself become the villain.
As my esteemed colleague Chad Finn once wrote, “Boston isn’t a city, it’s a family.”
It’s long past time that Henry started treating the Red Sox and their fans like his…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a contributor to Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter and Instagram.