My one-on-one interview with New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft

Yesterday I had the honor of conducting a one-on-one interview with New England Patriots president and New England Revolution owner Jonathan Kraft for over one hour at the State of Innovation, held at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel.

There were several hundred people in attendance, including the intrepid Warren K. Zola, who kindly took some photos and also had great insight for the discussion.


Jonathan and I discussed a wide-range of legal and business topics, including how technology will impact broadcasting for the Patriots and NFL, lessons for the NFL from the Donald Sterling story and the pioneering work by Kraft Group/Patriots VP Jessica Gelman on analytics.

A video of the panel will hopefully be made available soon, and this article on Bostino is now available.  Here is an excerpt:

Kraft cited one of the team's most famous examples of Gillette innovation: Stadium Wi-Fi. He relayed the point by using an experience that he had with Mark Cuban, who he noted was a friend, but had disagreed with him on the possibility of Wi-Fi for 70,000 people at a stadium. The two had discussed it "at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference half a dozen years ago."

"At the time," Kraft explained, "he basically just looked at  me and said 'Jonathan you're crazy, and you're not going to be able to do it, it doesn't exist." Yet the Patriots have managed to accomplish it with years to spare. Now fans can use the official Patriots app to get a more complete fan experience while attending the game.