Robert Kraft's gutsy $175 million investment in the New England Patriots has paid off big time

In 1994, Robert Kraft owned Foxboro Stadium, then the home of the New England Patriots, and rejected a $75 million offer to buy out the lease. If he had sold, it would have allowed the team to move. Instead, Kraft paid a then-NFL record $175 million to buy the team and keep it in the Boston area.

It was a gutsy move for a team playing nearly a decade's worth of bad football in an outdated stadium, dishing out the equivalent of about $300 million in today's dollars. Now the Patriots are the second-most valuable team in the NFL, valued at $3.4 billion, with a B, according to Forbes.com's latest valuations.

In 2000, the Patriots were considered just slightly above average with a value of $464 million compared with the average NFL team of $423 million. Since then, the value of the Patriots has increased 633% while the value of the average NFL team has increased 453%, and there are reasons to think the team is actually worth more than that.

Not bad. Not a bad investment at all.