Patriots Owner Robert Kraft The 59th Richest Billionaire: Forbes

FOXBOROUGH, MA — Robert Kraft owns the second most valuable football franchise in the National Football League. As a person, he ranks slightly lower, but hey, what's a few billion dollars to someone worth dozens of billions of dollars?

Forbes magazine published its annual 400 list Thursday, ranking the top billionaires in the nation — all the way from big shots like Jeff Bezos down to paupers like shopping mall magnate Richard Wang, who's only worth $2.7 billion and ranked last on the list.

Seven people from Massachusetts made the list, including Kraft, who is the second richest person in the state, and the 59th most wealthy in the world, according to the list. He is only behind Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson, who is the 29th wealthiest person.

According to the list, Kraft is worth $10.6 billion.

This year's ranking was the first time since the Great Recession that the 400 richest Americans didn’t get wealthier this year, according to the 2022 Forbes 400.

As a group, the net worth of super rich Americans was down $500 billion, or 11 percent, to $4 trillion, Forbes said. The Forbes list is based on stock prices from Sept. 2.

Kraft, at least, has a way to ease that blow thanks to the growing valuation of the Patriots.

Forbes released the annual list of the most valuable NFL franchises recently, and the Patriots rank second only behind the Dallas Cowboys after their valuation skyrocketed by $1.4 billion. That ranking series — the Cowboys in first and the Patriots in second — is consistent throughout Forbes findings in both 2021 and 2020.

Far ahead of the pack are the Dallas Cowboys, valued at $8 billion in 2022, followed by the Patriots at $6.4 billion and then the Los Angeles Rams at $6.2 billion. For the Patriots, their value has ballooned by $2 billion since 2020.

For context into not only the growth of the team, but also the league, Robert Kraft bought the franchise in 1994 for $172 million. Suffice to say, Kraft has achieved a desirable return on investment.

Read more: These 7 MA Billionaires Made The Forbes 400 List (Of Billionaires)