New England’s Revolution: Understanding The Patriot’s Playbook for Innovation 🏈
In a sports industry often defined by narrow remits and fixed roles, The Kraft Group's work across stadia, retail, commodities trading, and manufacturing, shows what can happen when you zoom out...
7 May 2025
At a manufacturing plant in New England, an AI-powered vision system scans a truckload of raw materials and determines whether they should be placed in a warehouse or routed straight to a conveyor belt. The system then alerts a forklift operator and verifies the task is completed correctly.
The same system monitors video feeds for safety and security at Gillette Stadium, detecting if someone climbs a fence, leaves a bag behind, or even potentially carries a weapon.
Soon, the same core technology could even be used by coaches of the NFL’s New England Patriots or the MLS’s New England Revolution to analyse formations in real time, flagging when a player lines up incorrectly.
These are three wildly different use cases for vastly different organisations, but all benefit from one centralised view, overseen by Michael Israel, Chief Information Officer at The Kraft Group.
Israel, the latest guest on the Sports Pundit Podcast, oversees a digital ecosystem that is anything but ordinary. With responsibilities spanning leading American sports franchises, stadia, a retail campus, a paper commodities trading firm, and multiple manufacturing plants, Israel operates at a scale few CIOs in sport can match.
“Because we’re supporting so many different businesses, it affords us the ability to investigate technology that normally, if I was just supporting the football team, I wouldn’t,” he explained.
This isn’t about complexity for its own sake. Rather, it is about compounding insight. At The Kraft Group, a solution discovered in one business often finds a second life in another. In a world where most organisations operate in silos, Israel’s team is moving laterally.
“A solution I may be finding in manufacturing, I can take that same piece, get proficient at it, and apply it over here, or vice versa at times.”
Covering such a diverse array of businesses, from Patriot Place to Rand Whitney Group, is more than a quirk of structure. It is a strategic asset.
This is especially when it comes to AI. While many organisations are still dabbling with generative tools for tasks like email writing or CV editing, The Kraft Group is exploring more than 70 use cases ranging from HR automation and inventory forecasting to real-time fan operations.
The size and variety of the group means Israel’s team can test, adapt, and scale solutions faster. Data lakes grow deeper and patterns emerge sooner.
“Like an entrepreneur, maybe 10 of them will wind up in production,” he explained. “But we're evaluating each potential use case based on what's happening within the individual business unit.”“As we go through potential use cases, my team is meeting with stakeholders across the business and asking, ‘What challenges are you facing?’”
Take HR, for example. The department receives around 10,000 resumes a year, a volume ripe for automation. Using AI, recruiters can filter through the required skills in less time to identify the best candidates already in the system.
But this isn’t just a playbook applicable for conglomerates.
The Kraft Group also learns from external partners, particularly when major events raise the bar. Whether it’s hosting Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour or preparing for seven FIFA Men’s World Cup matches in 2026 at the Gillette Stadium, each occasion brings fresh challenges and new insights.
“There are things that we are doing that we normally wouldn’t do because FIFA’s coming in here,” Israel said, describing it as akin to seven Super Bowls. “Last year we had the Army-Navy game… we had the opportunity to work with the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security.”
This ability to shift gears, absorb lessons, and experiment rapidly is underpinned by culture as much as structure.
“I’m lucky to have an ownership group behind me that allows us to be entrepreneurial… so it allows us not to get stagnant… we’re always looking for new ways to improve.”
In a sports industry often defined by narrow remits and fixed roles, Israel’s work shows what happens when you zoom out.
Whether you’re running a stadium, a startup, or a supply chain, it’s important to understand that innovation doesn’t always come from building something new. Sometimes it comes from smartly applying something already in practice elsewhere.