Foxboro Stadium The Patriots were founded in 1960 as the Boston Patriots of the
American Football League, and joined the NFL when the AFL
merged into the NFL in 1970. For their first 11 seasons, the Patriots played at several venues in and around Boston, none of which were large enough or suitable enough for a professional team. The lack of a professional-caliber stadium had stymied numerous past attempts at professional football in Boston. From
1971 to
2001, the Patriots played their home games at Foxboro Stadium. The stadium was privately funded on an extremely small budget and featured few amenities. Its aluminum benches would freeze over during cold-weather games and it had an unorganized dirt parking lot that turned to mud whenever it rained. At just over 60,000 seats, it was one of the NFL's smallest stadiums. In 1984, team executive
Chuck Sullivan funded the
Victory Tour of
The Jacksons, in an attempt to earn more profit for the team. Ticket sales failed, however, and the team's debt increased even further – to a final total of US$126 million. After two successive owners bought the team and stadium, it was clear that a new stadium had to be built for the team to stay in New England. This is when other cities in the New England area, including Boston (which was previously home to the Patriots),
Hartford, and Providence became interested in building new stadiums to lure the Patriots away from Foxborough.
Location discussions The first major stadium proposal from another city came in September 1993.
Lowell Weicker, the
Governor of Connecticut, proposed to the
Connecticut General Assembly that a new stadium should be built in Hartford to attract the Patriots to move there, stating that a stadium had "potentially great benefit" if it were built. The bill passed in the State Assembly on September 27, 1993. Back in
Massachusetts, there was a proposal to build a
"Megaplex" in Boston, which would be the site of the stadium, as well as a new
Fenway Park (the home park of the
Boston Red Sox) and a
convention center. The proposed sites for this hybrid convention center-stadium were
along Summer Street in
South Boston or at the so-called Crosstown site along
Melnea Cass Boulevard in
Roxbury, adjacent to Boston's
South End. The administration of Massachusetts Governor
William Weld pushed for construction of a full "Megaplex" at the crosstown site, with then-new Boston Mayor
Thomas Menino favoring construction of a new, stand-alone convention center in South Boston. Ultimately, the residents of neither of these neighborhoods wanted a stadium, and as a result, Menino backed out, fearing that it would affect his chance at re-election. The Fenway Park plan was cancelled after many "Save Fenway Park!" groups popped up to save the historic ballpark. Kraft then began a plan to build a new stadium in South Boston. In that plan, Kraft was to pay for the stadium himself, hoping to win the support of Weld and Menino. He began to sketch designs, but the project was leaked to the press in December 1996. The residents of South Boston objected to a stadium being built in that location, causing Menino and Weld to become angry at Kraft. Kraft abandoned all plans for a Boston Stadium after the affair. In January 1997, Kraft began talks with Providence mayor
Vincent Cianci to relocate the team to Providence and build a new stadium there. The proposed 68,000-seat domed stadium would have cost $250 million, and would have been paid through income taxes, public bonds, surcharges on tickets, and private funds. Residents of the neighborhood of the proposed project were extremely opposed to the project because the surrounding area would have needed massive infrastructure improvements. The proposal fell through after a few weeks. During a news conference in September 1998, the team revealed plans to build a new stadium in Foxborough, keeping the team in Massachusetts. It was to be funded by the state as well as Kraft himself. This plan brought more competition from Connecticut, as a $1 billion plan to renovate an area of Hartford, including building a stadium. Kraft then signed an agreement to move the team to Hartford on November 18, 1998. The proposed stadium included 68,000 seats, 60 luxury boxes, and had a projected cost of $375 million. As before in Boston and Providence, construction of the stadium was challenged by the residents. Problems with the site were discovered, and an agreement could not be reached regarding the details of the stadium. The entire plan eventually fell through, enraging then Connecticut governor
John G. Rowland, who lobbied hard for the stadium and spent weeks deliberating with Robert Kraft. Rowland announced at a press conference that he was officially "a New York Jets fan, now and probably forever". In 1999, the team officially announced that it would remain in Foxborough, which led to Gillette Stadium's construction. After the Hartford proposal fell through, Robert Kraft paid for 100% of the construction costs, a rare instance of an NFL owner privately financing the construction of a stadium.
Design On April 18, 2000, the team revealed plans for the new stadium in Foxborough. It was announced as a 68,000-seat stadium at a cost of $325 million, with the entire cost privately funded. Boston is thus the only city in professional sports in which all facilities are privately owned and operated. The Kraft Group (owner of the NFL team the Patriots and the MLS team the Revolution) owns Gillette Stadium, the Red Sox own Fenway Park, and TD Garden is owned by
Delaware North (the owner of the Bruins) (the Celtics rent the TD Garden from Delaware North). Concurrently announced was a new road to access the stadium from
U.S. Route 1, and an additional 3,000 parking spaces to accommodate the increased number of fans. The entrance includes a lighthouse (which was originally designed to shoot a light high) and a bridge modeled on Boston's
Longfellow Bridge. The lighthouse and bridge are now featured on the stadium's logo. For the first eight years of its existence, the stadium used a video display, with a smaller LED scoreboard just beneath it, at each end of the field. The south side also had a large LED scoreboard in addition to the smaller one. In 2010, the stadium installed two new
HD Daktronics video displays to replace the entire previous setup at both ends. At the time of their construction, the larger screen, at 41.5 feet tall and 164 feet wide (12.6 m x 50.0 m), was the second-largest video monitor in any NFL stadium; only
AT&T Stadium had a larger one. Gillette Stadium ranks first among all NFL venues in stadium food safety with 0% critical violations. The Gillette Stadium food service, instead of being outsourced like most NFL teams, is run in-house and is led by the Patriots executive director of foods and beverage David Wheeler. From January 18, 2021, to June 14, 2021, Gillette Stadium was used as a mass distribution site for the
COVID-19 vaccine, with a total of 610,283 shots being administered. Marking the 20th anniversary of the
September 11 attacks, a memorial garden was installed outside Gillette Stadium. It has a semicircle of six flowering trees, a commemorative plaque, a mural, and tribute stones with the names of the victims.
2023 renovation project On December 10, 2021, a $225 million renovation project was announced. Construction began in January 2022 and was completed in September 2023. The renovations included a new 22,000-square-foot outdoor video board installed at the north end, the largest video board of its kind in the United States. A new lighthouse, which reaches 218 feet at the top, provides 360-degree views of the stadium, Patriot Place, Foxborough, and beyond. 75,000 square feet of hospitality and function spaces were constructed to connect the East and West Putnam Clubs, the Dell Technology Suite Levels, and the upper concourse. The construction of these new spaces connected all levels 360 degrees. A new plaza and fan entrance were also built on the stadium's north end. == Events ==