There’s a new politician with a five-letter name who provokes plenty of four-letter words. More than a generation ago, he nearly made himself the potential target of plenty of four-letter words with a little Southie flair.
Via Boston.com, the Boston Globe reported in 1988 that Donald Trump passed on buying the Patriots because his financial advisors told him that the team had too much debt. And so Victor Kiam bought the franchise for $85 million, six years before the Krafts acquired the Patriots.
It’s an intriguing story given Trump’s notoriety and nascent presidential campaign, short-lived as it ultimately may be (I’m surely not the only one who hopes he makes it to at least one debate during the primaries). But let’s be realistic about Trump’s chances to acquire the Patriots in 1988.
It was only two years after Trump spearheaded the USFL’s antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. With others willing and able to buy the Patriots, the chances of Trump getting at least 21 of the then-28 owners to approve the acquisition would have been even longer than his current chances of turning 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue into the Trump House.