Meet Me @ MarketSite: Jeff Benedict

Jeff Benedict, author of the bestselling book "The Dynasty" joined us at the Nasdaq MarketSite as The Dynasty embarks on its next chapter as a 10-part documentary-series adaptation on @AppleTV. The Dynasty tells the definitive inside story of the Patriots organization under Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, exploring the unique chemistry that fueled the franchise’s success. Tune in to hear what inspired Benedict to write the book and what it was like to watch his work come to life on-screen.

Transcript:

I thought for just telling an epic American sports story, there was no better ground to get into than the Patriots.

I was inspired to write “The Dynasty” because there had never been an American football team that dominated for 20 years. There had been other dynasties like the Packers, and Steelers and the Cowboys, but none that lasted this long. I think what's fascinating to me about the Patriots, I wasn't even really a Patriots fan, but I do think that these figures like Tom Brady, a hundred years from now, I truly believe that historians will look back at them the way we look today back at Babe Ruth.

He's someone in the history books that most people know more about Babe Ruth than they do about most American presidents. And I think that that'll probably be the case for Tom Brady and this Patriots team. Even before I started writing “The Dynasty”, I, in my mind, could see it as a documentary series or a movie. I was writing it in a very visual way because I just thought that the characters Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft were, they were so compelling.

They were almost fictional, like something a Hollywood moviemaker would create on a page, except they're real people. For me, it's kind of humbling as a writer to think that I could be here in the halls of the Nasdaq, where some of the greatest figures in American business have come, to come and talk about some of the greatest figures in American sports who are, in a way, businessmen in their own right.

So it's an honor for me to be at Nasdaq today to do this. What really stands out for me with Brady, Belichick and Kraft is if you asked any one of them on the eve of winning a Super Bowl, “What's your favorite Super Bowl?” They'd all say the same thing. “The next one.” They're always looking forward. It's a work ethic that's really hard to talk about or teach.

You either have it in you or you don't. There's a lot more here than a football story. To me, this is a transcendent American kind of contemporary history story. Just because you don't necessarily root for a person or love them that way as a fan, you could come away saying, you know, I feel like I understand that person a little more now, and I have a deeper appreciation for who they are and for who they are as human beings, not just as athletes or performers.

I hope that when people get done reading or watching, they come away with just a deeper appreciation for what this team meant to America for two decades.