Gillette Stadium

• 1. Introduction

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  Gillette Stadium sits in Foxborough, Massachusetts, 22 miles southwest of Boston and 18 miles northeast of Providence, Rhode Island. On the 9th of September 2002, the New England Patriots unveiled their Super Bowl XXXVI championship banner inside it. The opponent that Monday night was the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the first NFL game the building had ever hosted. Robert Kraft is the businessman who ended up paying the entire construction bill himself, a rare move for an NFL owner. Before Foxborough kept the team, Hartford, Boston, and Providence each pitched rival stadiums to lure the Patriots away. What persuaded Kraft to build here instead of Providence or Hartford? Why did the venue first open under the name CMGI Field rather than Gillette? And how does a football stadium end up hosting a mass vaccination site and matches billed under the name "Boston Stadium"?

• 2. A Stadium Without a City

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  In 1960, the Boston Patriots joined the American Football League, then entered the NFL after the 1970 merger. For their first 11 seasons the team played at scattered venues around Boston, none large or suitable enough for professional football.

  From 1971 to 2001 the Patriots called Foxboro Stadium home, a facility built on an extremely small private budget. Its aluminum benches froze solid during winter games, and its unpaved parking lot turned to mud whenever it rained. At just over 60,000 seats, Foxboro Stadium ranked among the smallest venues in the NFL.

  In 1984, team executive Chuck Sullivan financed the Jacksons' Victory Tour, hoping the concert would boost team profits. Ticket sales failed, and the team's debt climbed to a total of 126 million dollars. Two successive owners bought the team and stadium before it became clear Foxborough needed a genuine replacement. Boston, Hartford, and Providence all sensed an opening and began courting the Patriots with new stadium proposals.

  Lowell Weicker, the governor of Connecticut, pitched a Hartford stadium to the state assembly in September 1993, calling it of "potentially great benefit." The assembly passed the bill on the 27th of September 1993. Massachusetts countered with a "Megaplex" plan for Boston, pairing a new stadium with a rebuilt Fenway Park and a convention center. Proposed sites sat on Summer Street in South Boston and along Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury. Neither neighborhood wanted a stadium. Mayor Thomas Menino backed out, fearing damage to his re-election chances, and "Save Fenway Park" campaigners killed off the plan to replace the historic ballpark.

  Kraft then sketched his own South Boston stadium, intending to fund it himself, until the plan leaked to the press in December 1996. South Boston residents objected, and the leak left both Menino and Governor William Weld angry at Kraft. In January 1997 Kraft turned to Providence, discussing a 68,000-seat domed stadium with mayor Vincent Cianci. That 250 million dollar plan would have drawn on income taxes, public bonds, ticket surcharges, and private funds, but it collapsed within weeks.

  By September 1998 the Patriots announced a Foxborough stadium instead, funded jointly by the state and Kraft. Connecticut fought back with a billion dollar Hartford renovation plan, and Kraft signed an agreement to relocate there on the 18th of November 1998. That design called for 68,000 seats, 60 luxury boxes, and a 375 million dollar budget. Site problems and unresolved details sank the Hartford deal, angering governor John G. Rowland after weeks of negotiating with Kraft. Rowland told a press conference he was now officially "a New York Jets fan, now and probably forever."

  In 1999 the team confirmed it would stay in Foxborough after all, clearing the way for construction to begin the following spring.

• 3. Building the Front Door

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  On the 18th of April 2000, the team unveiled a 68,000-seat design costing 325 million dollars, funded entirely with private money. Boston became the only city in professional sports where every major sports facility sits on privately owned land. The Kraft Group would own the new stadium, just as the Red Sox own Fenway Park and Delaware North owns the TD Garden that the Celtics merely rent.

  Design work, however, had started earlier: Foxborough approved construction on the 6th of December 1999, and crews broke ground on the 24th of March 2000. HOK Sport, the firm now called Populous, handled the design, cycling through roughly 200 concepts before Kraft settled on one. He wanted the building modeled on Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium, which had opened in 1998, complete with a Disneyland-style "front door." The finished entrance combined a lighthouse, originally designed to project a beam two miles into the sky, with a bridge modeled on Boston's Longfellow Bridge. Both landmarks now appear together on the stadium's official logo.

  The very first event inside the new building was a Major League Soccer match on the 11th of May 2002, where the Revolution beat the Dallas Burn 2-0. Jeremiah Freed opened the WBCN River Rave there on the 9th of June that year, becoming the first band ever to perform at the stadium.

  Within months, the stadium's own name would change hands too, a shift tied to the collapse of the dot-com era.

• 4. Naming Rights and Streaks

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  CMGI held the original naming rights, until the company's fortunes collapsed alongside the broader internet stock crash, and Gillette bought the name instead. Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette in 2005, yet the stadium kept the Gillette name regardless of the parent company change. In September 2010, Gillette and the Patriots extended that naming partnership through the 2031 season. uBid, once a CMGI subsidiary until 2003, still sponsors one of the stadium's main entrance gates.

  64,628 is the stadium's current seating capacity, including 5,876 club seats and 82 luxury suites. Special MBTA Commuter Rail service reaches the stadium from Boston and Providence on event days, alongside regular weekday trains on the Franklin or Foxboro Line to Foxboro station.

  That sellout streak actually traces back to the 1994 season at Foxboro Stadium, and by September 2016 it had reached 231 consecutive games. The Patriots have sold out every home game since moving into Gillette itself, spanning preseason, regular season, and playoff contests alike. Kraft Sports Group, a subsidiary of the Kraft Group, owns and operates the venue on Robert Kraft's behalf.

  That same ownership structure would soon be tested on the field, where the Patriots built one of the NFL's most lopsided home playoff records.

• 5. Football Under the Lights

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  The following postseason, after the 2003 regular season, brought the coldest game in Patriots history, a Divisional Round matchup against the Tennessee Titans that the Patriots won 17-14. The stadium hosted its first AFC Championship Game that same postseason, a 24-14 win over the Indianapolis Colts. Between the 2003 and 2007 seasons, the Patriots won all seven playoff games played at the stadium. That run included the 2007 AFC Championship, a victory over the San Diego Chargers that pushed the team to an 18-0 record on the way to Super Bowl XLII.

  The Baltimore Ravens ended that home playoff dominance on the 10th of January 2010, winning 33-14 for the Patriots' first home postseason loss. A second straight home playoff defeat followed on the 16th of January 2011, a 28-21 loss to the New York Jets. During the 2011-12 postseason, the Patriots beat the Denver Broncos 45-10, then won a third AFC Championship over the Baltimore Ravens, 23-20. The New York Giants then beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl for the second time. The following year's AFC Championship at the stadium went the other way, a 28-13 loss to Baltimore that closed out longtime radio announcer Gil Santos's broadcasting career there.

  During the 2014-15 playoffs, the Patriots avenged that Ravens loss with a 35-31 win, then beat the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in the AFC Championship. A sixth AFC Championship followed during the 2016 playoffs, a 36-17 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, and a seventh came the next year, a 24-20 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. In the 2018 season, the Patriots beat the Los Angeles Chargers 41-28 in the Divisional Round on their way to winning Super Bowl LIII. Tom Brady's final game as a Patriot came in the First Round of the 2019 playoffs, a 20-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans. By the end of the 2025 season, the Patriots' all-time playoff record at the stadium stood at 21-4.

  The venue later hosted Tom Brady's induction into the Patriots Hall of Fame, moving the ceremony from its usual spot in front of the stadium's pro shop. More than 60,000 spectators turned out, a scale the pro shop plaza could never have accommodated.

  That same spotlight later shared the calendar with lacrosse, soccer, and even hockey, sports the Patriots never played there themselves.

• 6. Beyond the Gridiron

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  The New England Revolution beat the Chicago Fire in both the 2005 and 2007 Eastern Conference Finals, sending the club to the MLS Cup each time. Gillette itself hosted the MLS Cup Final in 2002, drawing a crowd of 61,316, the largest standalone MLS postseason crowd on record until Atlanta's 2018 final. The stadium also staged four matches of the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup and several Copa America Centenario games in 2016. On the 27th of April 2024, Inter Miami CF, who had signed Lionel Messi the year before, drew 65,612 fans and beat the Revolution 4-1, breaking the stadium's soccer attendance record.

  Lacrosse found a home here too. The NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championships came to Gillette in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2025. The Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse played their 2015 season at the stadium. The Premier Lacrosse League chose Boston as the first city on its inaugural 2019 schedule, hosting games there on the 1st and the 2nd of June 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic scrapped its planned 2020 return.

  On the 1st of January 2016, Gillette hosted the eighth NHL Winter Classic, a 5-1 Boston Bruins win over the Montreal Canadiens in front of 67,246 fans.

  College football arrived when the UMass Minutemen played every 2012 and 2013 home game at Gillette, 95 miles from their Amherst campus, the longest such trip of any FBS program. Their own Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium seated only 17,000, too small to meet FBS attendance rules at the time. A later deal brought UMass back for four games between 2014 and 2016, and for occasional high-attendance games through 2018. In 2023 Gillette hosted the Army-Navy Game as a neutral site, and Navy is scheduled to play Notre Dame there in 2026.

  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band packed the stadium across two nights in August 2003, grossing over 7 million dollars during The Rising Tour. Taylor Swift became the first woman to headline the stadium on the 5th of June 2010. Beyonce and Jay-Z headlined together on the 1st of July 2014, making Jay-Z the first rapper, and the pair the first Black artists, to headline Gillette. One Direction then played three consecutive nights that same August, the first act ever to do so at the venue. Taylor Swift returned in July 2018 and became the first woman to headline three consecutive nights, grossing nearly 21.8 million dollars across the run. A Rolling Stones show set for the 8th of June 2019 was postponed after Mick Jagger underwent a heart procedure, rescheduling to the 7th of July 2019. Ed Sheeran then set the stadium's single-show attendance record on the 1st of July 2023, with 71,723 fans in the building.

  Motorsports and civic life share the calendar too. AMA Supercross has raced at Gillette since 2016, and Monster Jam has visited since 2014. Bridgewater State University holds its annual graduation ceremonies inside the stadium as well.

  In 2026 the stadium becomes one of eleven United States World Cup venues, hosting seven matches. FIFA bars corporate sponsor names during the tournament, so the venue will be billed as Boston Stadium instead.

• 7. The Neighborhood Kraft Built

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  In 2006, the Patriots and Kraft announced a 350 million dollar plan to build Patriot Place, a lifestyle and entertainment complex surrounding the stadium. That budget exceeded the cost of building Gillette Stadium itself. Kraft had already bought roughly 700 acres of the surrounding land back in the late 1980s, when he purchased Foxboro Stadium.

  The first phase opened in the fall of 2007, bringing New England's first Bass Pro Shops location alongside Circuit City, Bed Bath & Beyond, Five Guys Burgers, Christmas Tree Shops, and Staples. In December 2007, the Patriots and CBS announced CBS Scene, a themed restaurant and nightclub built alongside studios for CBS-owned WBZ-TV. Phase two also brought an open-air mall, a health center, a Cinema de Lux movie theater, and a four-star Renaissance hotel. It included the Patriots Hall of Fame too, a two-level interactive museum paired with the team's pro shop. Phase two's first restaurants and stores opened in July 2008, followed soon after by the Hall of Fame and CBS Scene ahead of that season. The health center and hotel followed in 2009, alongside additional openings in phase one.

  Circuit City and CBS Scene have since closed. Just next door, the stadium itself was about to start changing even faster, starting with the field beneath the players' feet.

• 8. The Stadium Keeps Changing

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  On the 14th of November 2006, two days after a rainstorm wrecked the grass field during a game against the Jets, team management ordered a switch to synthetic turf. NFL rules normally required such work to happen in the off-season, but the league waived that rule given the field's poor condition. Three crews worked around the clock, finishing the entire FieldTurf installation during a two-week road trip. The Patriots christened the new surface with a win over the previously 9-1 Chicago Bears on the 26th of November. Quarterback Tom Brady finished the 2007 season with a 31-3 record on artificial turf, having lost only a preseason game to the Tennessee Titans. The team then won its next eleven regular-season and playoff games on the surface, a streak that lasted from November 2006 until a September 2008 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

  In February 2010, crews pulled up that turf and installed FieldTurf Duraspine Pro, built to meet FIFA standards the earlier surface lacked. A further upgrade came in April 2014, when the stadium switched to FieldTurf Revolution with a VersaTile drainage system, a product now used at Lumen Field in Seattle and Providence Park in Portland.

  Overhead, the stadium's scoreboards changed too. For its first eight years, each end zone carried a video display with a smaller LED board beneath it. In 2010, Gillette installed two new HD Daktronics displays, the larger measuring 41.5 feet tall and 164 feet wide, second in size among NFL stadiums only to the screen at AT&T Stadium.

  Gillette also ranks first among NFL venues for stadium food safety, with zero percent critical violations. Unlike most NFL teams, which outsource concessions, Gillette runs its food service in-house under David Wheeler, the Patriots' executive director of food and beverage.

  From the 18th of January 2021 through the 14th of June that year, the stadium served as a mass COVID-19 vaccination site, administering 610,283 shots. Marking the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the stadium added a memorial garden outside its gates, a semicircle of six flowering trees around a plaque, a mural, and stones bearing victims' names.

  The most recent overhaul began on the 10th of December 2021, a 225 million dollar renovation running from January 2022 to September 2023. It added a 22,000 square foot outdoor video board at the north end, the largest of its kind in the United States, plus a new 218-foot lighthouse offering 360-degree views of the stadium and Patriot Place. Roughly 75,000 square feet of new hospitality space now connects the East and West Putnam Clubs, the Dell Technology Suite levels, and the upper concourse.

  On the field itself, the Patriots still paint their "Flying Elvis" logo, or "Pat Patriot" for throwback games, at the center of the 50-yard line. A separate Gillette Stadium logo, a gray and blue rendering of the entrance bridge and tower, once shared that turf until the 2023 renovation, but it no longer appears on the field at all. Concerts already booked for 2026 include BTS in August and Bruno Mars in September, keeping the building's calendar full years in advance.