I'm sorry to say this, but you are flat out wrong.
We would have had a team, believe me..
No sir..no way and no how. How soon everyone really forgets what truly came down and it is really simple - without Bob Kraft you would have been rooting for the Giants last Feb. because that would have been your home team once again.
All of these other folks that people say would have stepped in and bought the team...Fireman, Karp, Lurie all of them had their chances and never did step up. James Orthwein did and he did so with one reason...to take a team back to the home of Budweiser.
Let's go back and really look at what really came down as 1993 was really almost the last season of our New England Patriots came to it's conclusion.
Bob Kraft owned the stadium.
James Orthwein owned the team.
The stadium had a lease through the year 2,000 I do believe.
Orthwein offered Kraft a lot of money to void the lease 75,000,000 - huge at the time.
That is it folks - that is the moment in time where your New England Patriots were within a whisker of leaving town and off to St Louis.
Right then and there had Kraft taken the offer - load up the vans folks because they were gone. St Louis really thought they had this team, plans had been made for two years as soon as Orthwein had bought the team from Kiam. Surely, nobody would be foolish enough to not only turn down that huge sum of money that Orthwein was offering, but to also pay 175,000,000 which was the highest price ever paid, by far, for a NFL franchise.
Say anything that you all want to - but the fact is Kraft did not take the money and he did pay a ridiculous amount of money for this team.
Furthermore, does anyone really think Boston or Massachusetts or anywhere in New England would have done what would have been required to lure a franchise back here?? Are you kidding me - the area could never even build a first class stadium for 42 years (I take nothing away from the great Billy Sullivan who also turned down some great offers and also built a serviceable & cool little stadium), until some guy by the name of Kraft built one with his own money.
Sorry folks, while you may not be pleased with the ticket increase, make no mistake about things - without the Krafts there would not be a team in New England.