December 18th, 2008 
Matt Loede 
Posted in 
From: Wall Street Journal
Falcons owner Arthur Blank asked if running an NFL team is like The Home Depot: “It’s a lot more similar than dissimilar from a business standpoint. The decision-making that drives our behavior is very much the same. What’s different is that you’re dealing here with the risk of injury, which obviously in the world of Home Depot we didn’t have. Somebody broke their leg, they came to work the next day or maybe two days later. But we didn’t lose them for a year or a season. The other thing that’s different is the amount of media attention. I remember when I first bought the team I had breakfast with Robert Kraft, who is the owner of the New England Patriots.
He said all of the things you did to build Home Depot are exactly the same here. What you’re going to find that’s very different is the amount of media attention you get. I still remember saying to Bob, ‘Listen, we built the second-largest retail company in the United States. They are a [New York] Stock Exchange company. We had a fair amount of media attention.’ He looked at me, smiling and winking and said, ‘You don’t quite get it, but you will.’”
