how sports team owners made their fortunes

How Billionaire Sports Owners Made Their Fortunes

You obviously must be exceedingly wealthy to become an owner. Did you ever wonder how all these people made all that money? Here’s a list of eight billionaire owners and how they built their fortunes.

Robert Kraft, New England Patriots

I’d never really given it much thought, but I’d always assumed Kraft bought the Patriots with big cheese money he’d inherited. But Kraft got his start in the paper business. His wife, Myra, is the daughter of Massachusetts philanthropist Jacob Hiatt. After Kraft finished Harvard Business School, he went to work with his father-in-law’s packaging company.

In 1972, Kraft founded International Forest Products, which is now part of the Kraft Group – a diversified collection of companies ranging from Gillette Stadium to the New England Revolution (Major League Soccer) to Carmel Container Systems (Israel’s largest packaging plant). Kraft is seen as a savior in New England – before he bought the team in 1994, the Pats seemed destined for relocation to St. Louis. Plus he’s made them really, really good, winning three Super Bowls this decade.



Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys

Jerry Jones built an oil empire in the early 1970s, striking gas in the first thirteen wells he drilled. His father had given him a head start; Pat Jones sold the Modern Security Life Insurance Company for millions.

An undersized guard, Jones was captain of the 1965 Cotton Bowl-winning Arkansas Razorbacks. Future Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson was a teammate, and Johnson’s successor, Barry Switzer, was a Razorbacks assistant.

Jones bought the Cowboys for an estimated $140 million in 1989. He immediately made waves by firing Tom Landry – the only coach in Cowboys history – and replacing him with his college buddy (the aforementioned Jimmy Johnson, who was coaching the University of Miami). After a rocky 1-15 start in 1989, the Cowboys went on to win three Super Bowls in the 1990s.
see the rest via mentalfloss