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Don Van Natta Jr., ESPN Senior Writer
Robert Kraft, the six-time Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots owner considered a favorite for the 2025 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has been passed over again by the Hall’s contributor committee, sources told ESPN.
Instead, the nine-member committee, which each year advances one name for consideration by all 50 Hall voters, chose Ralph Hay, a co-founder of the National Football League and the owner of the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 to 1922, five sources with knowledge of the decision told ESPN this week.
The contributor committee’s decision was made Nov. 12 and is expected to be announced by the Hall of Fame next month. Hay, along with one coaching candidate and three candidates from an earlier NFL era whose names still have not been revealed, will be considered by the full selection committee for the Hall in January 2025.
In response to questions from ESPN, the Hall of Fame released a statement Thursday, saying the names of all the finalists will be “announced jointly in early December, once all committees have held their selection meetings.”
The Patriots’ longtime spokesperson, Stacey James, declined to comment when reached by ESPN.
This year marks the 13th year that Kraft, now 83, was considered by a Hall committee but failed to advance out of committee. Eighty percent of the voters must approve the nominated finalists for induction into the Hall in Canton, Ohio.
Several voters told ESPN they were surprised that the committee did not make Kraft a finalist this year. After the Hall split the coaches and contributors into separate categories, some voters said they believed Kraft had an easier path to induction.
“It’s a huge surprise,” said one source, who insisted on anonymity. “And it’s very disappointing. Unless you are an NFL historian, you don’t know who Ralph Hay is.”
Hay is considered the founding father of the NFL. In 1920, he organized the first meeting of teams that became the American Professional Football Association, the precursor to the NFL. Historians say without Hay, there might not have been an NFL.
Kraft has had 13 opportunities for Canton, while Hay was passed over since the Hall was founded in 1963. In fact, he has never been a finalist until this year. In 2020, after the Hall convened a specially selected group of voters to choose a centennial class marking the NFL’s 100th anniversary, voters picked three contributors for induction.
Hay was not among them.
One source who was angry about Hay’s selection over Kraft said, “Hay didn’t believe players should be paid. He sold the team after only four years. I don’t know how he is seen as more deserving than Bob Kraft.”
Although Hay does not have a bronze bust in Canton, a Hall of Fame honor is named after him. Established in 1972, the Ralph Hay Pioneer award is given to people who have made “significant and innovative contributions to professional football.” Fernando Von Rossum, a Spanish-language NFL announcer, received the award in August.
In 1972, Hall of Fame coach George Halas hailed Hay, saying “he was a pioneer in Canton … and dreamed of bigger, better things in the form of a major league … I emphatically recommend that Ralph Hay be voted into our Pro Football Hall of Fame and be honored just as have others who have followed him as players or owners.”
In September, ESPN reported on the long campaign Kraft’s supporters have waged on his behalf to get a bronze bust in Canton. Supporters of Kraft say he is long overdue to be inducted. The lifelong Patriots fan bought the team in 1994 and quickly turned it into one of the most successful franchises in NFL history. He hired Bill Belichick as coach in 2000 and oversaw the Patriots’ six Super Bowl-winning seasons from 2001 to 2018.
“There’s no box that Robert Kraft doesn’t check to get into the Hall of Fame,” Hall of Famer Bill Polian, an ardent Kraft supporter, told ESPN earlier this year.
Beginning in 2012, an aggressive campaign for Kraft was helmed by James, who pushed his boss’s candidacy in numerous ways, including sending the bestselling 2018 pro-Kraft book, “The Dynasty,” authored by Jeff Benedict, to Hall of Fame voters. One voter said he received the book two years in a row.
Several sources said that James did not lobby for Kraft this year.
In the past decade, three owners have been inducted. Eddie J. DeBartolo, the former San Francisco 49ers owner was inducted in 2016 despite losing his team in 2000 because of his connection to an extortion case. Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager, was inducted in August 2017. And Pat Bowlen, the late Denver Broncos owner, was inducted the following year.
In mid-October, the Hall of Fame announced the 25 contributors up for Hall of Fame consideration. Besides Kraft and Hay, the other contributors who were considered include Art Modell, the former Cleveland Browns owner; Bud Adams, who founded the Houston Oilers and later moved the franchise to Tennessee; and Chicago Bears owner Virginia McCaskey.
From television, three people behind the success of “Monday Night Football” were among the 25 nominees considered, including legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell and Roone Arledge, the ABC executive who produced the games that lifted the NFL’s popularity in the 1970s.