NWN Wins Blockbuster Five-Year Deal With The Kraft Group To Drive AI Era Tech Blitz
‘The amount of technology spend that’s going to be coming during this period related to transforming our networks is unprecedented,’ says The Kraft Group CIO Michael Israel. ‘We have not done something as enormous as this during our history here.’
The blockbuster deal teams NWN in a tight technology partnership with The Kraft Group and Kraft Group CIO Michael Israel (pictured above left) with a charter to overhaul and upgrade the IT network and infrastructure for Gillette Stadium for the AI era.
The deal includes network upgrades, modernized cloud collaboration solutions and AI-enabled applications to improve the Gillette Stadium experience for fans and players of the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution soccer team.
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NWN will also provide a state-of-the-art infrastructure foundation for the New England Patriots’ new training facility. That includes new AI-enabled applications for players and coaches.
“It’s one of our largest commitments and it comes with a tremendous amount of change that’s going to happen over the next five to seven years, including Gillette Stadium and the proposed new soccer stadium in Everett [for The New England Revolution],” said Israel in an interview with CRN. “The amount of technology spend that’s going to be coming during this period related to transforming our networks is unprecedented. We have not done something as enormous as this during our history here.”
The NWN deal comes with The Kraft Group planning a number of major IT upgrades as it prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
The partnership extends well beyond the New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium and the New England Revolution. It encompasses all of The Kraft Group businesses, including paper and packaging businesses like Rand Whitney and International Forest Products, real estate and private equity investments.
Israel would not disclose how big the IT investment The Kraft Group is making as part of the five-year technology makeover other than to say: “It is very large.”
The deal effectively opens the door for The Kraft Group to reimagine the fan, player and employee experience for the AI era, said Israel. “AI is becoming so advanced you are able to automate the low-hanging decision processes,” he said. “It is allowing our people to step up higher in terms of what they are doing.”
AI—which is already being used by the New England Patriots in a number of areas including AI video analytics to ensure fan safety-—can be used in a wide range of areas to improve the “stadium experience” for fans and players with new AI-enabled applications, said Israel.
The current focus is looking at how to leverage existing data in an AI world, said Israel. “It is all about how can we use the tools that are now really coming at us every single day to just change the way we do business,” he said.
The Kraft Group Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft and The Kraft Group President Jonathan Kraft are both very engaged in charting the new technology course for the businesses, said Israel.
In fact, he said, Jonathan Kraft repeatedly challenges him to push the organization faster and further with groundbreaking technology. “Jonathan is always pushing and asking, ‘What tools can we use to help the business move forward?’” said Israel.
For NWN the deal—which includes a sponsorship as the official technology infrastructure partner of The Kraft Group—is a showcase for its AI prowess, including its AI-powered digital transformation portfolio. The announcement of the deal comes just two weeks after NWN—once NWN-Carousel—rebranded as NWN and launched its new NWN.aiwebsite.
“AI is inside all of this,” said NWN Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Gilman (pictured above right), who built a relationship with Israel over the course of the last several years and helped architect the deal. “We are not just throwing AI at a problem because it says ‘AI’ and it is sexy. We are really trying to align with what The Kraft Group is trying to deliver in all these scenarios and then we are going to bring in our solutions and capabilities in a way that allows them to harness the power of AI in a very repeatable, predictable and compliant way so they can be more successful.”
Gilman credited NWN President and CEO Jim Sullivan for setting the stage for the blockbuster deal by building NWN from its humble New England roots into a billion-dollar national AI powerhouse with the size and scale to partner with The Kraft Group on the technology transformation. “We couldn’t do a deal like this if Jim didn’t have the vision six years ago to make NWN what it is today,” he said.
Gilman sees the deal as the bringing together of two mega New England-based organizations with a “common” culture of “innovation, excellence and high integrity.”
“This is really about radical alignment in terms of what The Kraft Group needed to meet their needs and what we have built and proven in the market,” he said. “That gave them the confidence to enter into a long-term partnership. The Kraft Group could have selected anyone in the world. We came together and got this done with Michael leading the charge on the technology.”
The deal to modernize The Kraft Group’s existing technology stack is a coming home of sorts for NWN, which many years ago put in the original Wi-Fi network in Gillette Stadium.
This time, NWN is bringing the full breadth and depth of its AI portfolio to the entire Kraft Group. “We have a great differentiated portfolio of offerings with AI in all of them,” said Gilman. “We have built these differentiated offerings, whether it is for customer experience, managed devices, security, connectivity, the cloud. They all have AI in them. So it’s not bolted-on-after-the-fact AI. It is built with intention so the AI gets you the productivity, the efficiency and flexibility you need to be successful in the AI era.”
The Kraft Group deal goes well beyond acting as simply a solution provider or integrator, said Gilman. “It allows us to really be an extension of The Kraft Group to help them manage through all this transformational change that is going on,” he said. “This deal extends well beyond the core infrastructure into every aspect of the needs of The Kraft Group IT team with regard to the scope and scale of the operation.”
In addition to the technology partnership, the deal marks NWN’s first professional sports sponsorship covering the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium. “This takes our brand to the next level,” said Gilman. “You are going to see NWN in and around the stadium. We are going to have NWN signs. We are building out an NWN tech suite. You are going to see NWN when you are in a suite and you pick up a phone. The players will experience it with all the technology they interact with. The employees will interact with all the infrastructure. So it is really ubiquitous. NWN is powering The Kraft Group’s next five years of technology evolution across the board.”
The NWN team is already on-site at Gillette Stadium and is currently upgrading the VoIP network at the facility. “Our teams are there all the time,” Gilman said. “We are consulting with Michael and his team and [Kraft Sports + Entertainment COO] Jim Nolan to meet the requirements for this strategic five-year plan so we can deliver today, tomorrow and the next day.
“We are talking about stadiums, the World Cup, the new players’ facility, and bringing tech into every aspect of the organization from the players to the fans to the employees,” he said.
Israel, a 30-year-plus IT veteran with roots in the channel as a solution provider COO, said the partnership with NWN is based on an “old-school” philosophy of creating a long-term relationship built on trust and integrity. “As long as we are straight with each other, the partnership will grow,” he said.
Gilman, for his part, said the two companies are bringing honesty to their partnership. “We look each other in the eye,” he said. “We are building on a relationship built on trust and mutually delivering for each other.”
As to the economic impact of the deal, Israel said, “The economic impact is how do we get smarter and how do we drive efficiencies and the guest experience. If the guest experience is better, people are going to stay longer and they are going to buy more. The more modern we become, the more we transform, the more efficient we become.”
