When it comes to transporting large sports organizations to their away matches, the challenge of moving hundreds of personnel alongside thousands of pounds of equipment can be monumental. Team logistics are planned years in advance, and some individuals dedicate their entire lives to making sure that all aspects of a team’s travel experience go off without a hitch.
When traveling longer distances, sports teams must rely on air transportation, which can be especially difficult for American football teams that have some of the world’s tallest and strongest athletes on their rosters. These players will almost always require seating in first-class cabins, or at the very least the seat next to them open in economy, requiring even more space than would usually be expected for a group of around 250 people.
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Therefore, the practice of chartering aircraft from commercial airlines has become the norm for teams of the United States National Football League (NFL), for which biweekly travel to away games is required. However, chartering planes can be a logistical challenge, as they are configured for standard airline passenger operations, not for transporting a football team and all of its equipment.
Thus, there have been a pair of NFL teams that have identified a unique solution to this logistical nightmare, one which will likely carry a far higher price tag. Two teams, the New England Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals, have each maintained their fleet of private jets
for a few years now. Let’s take a deeper look at the private jet operations within the NFL.
The New England Patriots fleet
The story of the Patriots’ private jet fleet began in 1994, when Robert Kraft, the CEO of the Kraft Group, acquired the team. Shortly after he took over, the team had gone from a losing franchise to one that routinely made the playoffs. When Kraft hired Bill Belichick as the team’s head coach in 2000, the franchise’s success immediately took off, and Super Bowl wins soon came once sure-to-be hall-of-famer Tom Brady became the starting quarterback.
All of this success on the field eventually turned into financial success for the franchise, which slowly rose to become the third most valuable sports franchise in the world. With all of this extra money, Kraft began to look into strategies that would ease the immense logistical burden on the team. One of these strategies was the acquisition of new aircraft, which would allow the team to remain flexible during the busy, but still short, NFL season, according to AeroTime Hub.
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The Patriots acquired their two aircraft in 2017, and both original planes remain in service with the team today. These planes, according to an earlier analysis from Simple Flying, were Boeing 767-300 widebody airliners that were originally delivered to American Airlines in the fall of 1991. Therefore, these jets, at over 30 years of age each, remain some of the oldest Boeing 767 models still flying in America’s skies today. Their registrations are:
It is important to note that the Patriots have not operated these aircraft themselves, having outsourced that responsibility to charter operator Eastern Airlines. The carrier often leases out its planes for private use by other operators and often sends its planes on humanitarian missions, such as delivering masks in China.
The Arizona Cardinals fleet
For a few years, the New England Patriots were the only NFL team to own their dedicated aircraft, while almost all others relied on either short-term leases or charter agreements. In 2021, the Arizona Cardinals also decided to join the list by purchasing a massive Boeing 777-200ER for their team.
The Arizona Cardinals that season were among the teams expected to travel most, with over 22,100 miles on their schedule. Over the past decade, the National Football League has pursued several initiatives to help increase its viewership base outside the United States. One of these initiatives was a set of new regular-season NFL games that would be played in London, requiring transatlantic travel for many teams.
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With this in mind, the Arizona Cardinals decided to take the question of logistics out of their minds by acquiring a large widebody aircraft. Over the past few years, the Arizona Cardinals have continued to expand their fleet, with the team now owning five different Boeing 777-200 jets, of which two are parked permanently at Roswell Air Center (ROW) and Pinal Airpark (MZJ) in Arizona.
This fleet, which has an average age of nearly 25 years, is operated by Gridiron Air, according to Planespotters. An additional Boeing 777-200 order remains on the company’s books as well and the team operates flights under the callsign “Cards Flight.” VCAP Aviation LLC, the holding company owned by the Cardinals for this private jet fleet, has aircraft with the following registration numbers:
- N866DA
- N865DA
- N864DA
- N861DA
- N860DA
Other sports organizations
While the Patriots and the Cardinals are the only two NFL teams to own private jets, multiple other sports teams have team aircraft. Unsurprisingly, many of these are teams with strong reputations and extensive financial reserves, including the Los Angeles Lakers, which operate a Boeing 757-200, and the Dallas Mavericks, which own a Gulfstream G450, according to Amalfi Jets.
There are a few baseball teams that own private jets as well, such as the Boston Red Sox, which maintains a Gulfstream G550 for certain operations. As private jets are so expensive and chartering planes much more economical, there are just not all that many sports teams that can justify this excessive cost.