Jeff Benedict’s Inside Account of the New England Patriots Dynasty to be Published in September
The New England Patriots, the most dominant franchise in professional team sports over the past twenty years, are the subject of a new book by Jeff Benedict, it was announced today by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Benedict, most recently the coauthor of the critically acclaimed #1 New York Times bestseller Tiger Woods and a longtime special features writer for Sports Illustrated, secured exclusive access to the Patriots starting in 2018 and reported from within the organization for nearly two years. The book, titled The Dynasty, is a comprehensive account based on 250 interviews with more than 200 people and will be published in September 2020.
As recently as the mid-1990s, the Patriots were the laughingstock of the NFL, a team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of bankruptcy. Over the ensuing twenty-five years, the Patriots became a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world with an estimated value of $4 billion. In February 2019, owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady won an unprecedented sixth Lombardi Trophy together. Their twenty-year reign atop the NFL was the longest in league history, surpassing dynasties by the Packers in the ’60s, the Steelers in the ’70s, and the 49ers in the ’80s.
To write The Dynasty, Benedict conducted exhaustive interviews with team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors and lawyers, league officials, network television executives, sports agents, politicians, and entertainers. These include Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Drew Bledsoe, Paul Tagliabue, Randy Moss, Mel Karmazin, Willie McGinest, Roger Goodell, Tedy Bruschi, Jon Bon Jovi, Rob Gronkowski, Sean McManus, Vince Wilfork, Rupert Murdoch, Deion Branch, Leigh Steinberg, Kevin Faulk, and many more. Benedict also had access to hundreds of hours of video and audio recordings, as well as thousands of pages of legal documents, transcripts, business records, emails, text messages, and minutes from phone calls and meetings.
“I’m fascinated by individuals and organizations that become the best in the world at something,” Benedict said. “The Patriots are the greatest sports dynasty of the twenty-first century. So I set out to answer two basic questions: How was this dynasty built? And why was it able to last so much longer than its predecessors? The secrets to the success were hidden in rooms—the owner’s office, the coach’s office, the locker room, the bedroom, the family room, the emergency room—where the decision-makers wrestled with complex questions, negotiated high-stakes deals, engaged in heated arguments, made middle-of-the night phone calls, held heart-to-heart conversations, and came face to face with the human toll of a fiercely competitive business. And I found that the dynasty’s durability ultimately resided in the unusual relationship between the owner, the coach, and the quarterback.”
World, Audio, and First Serial rights to The Dynasty were acquired in early 2019 by Jofie Ferrari-Adler, vice president and publisher of Avid Reader Press, from literary agent Richard Pine of InkWell Management. The book will be published simultaneously in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook editions.
