Foxboro Stadium

Lore & Background

The stadium opened in August 1971 as Schaefer Stadium primarily as the home venue for the renamed New England Patriots. The team was known as the Boston Patriots for its first eleven seasons (1960–70), and had played in various stadiums in the Boston area. For six seasons, 1963–68, the Patriots played in Fenway Park. With the completion of the AFL–NFL merger, the league required its teams to play in stadiums which seated more than 50,000. The then-Boston Patriots played the 1969 season at Alumni Stadium at Boston College and the 1970 season at Harvard Stadium. The site was selected when the owners of Bay State Raceway donated the land. The general contractor was J. F. White Contracting Co. Ground was broken in September 1970, and it cost $7.1 million, only $200,000 over budget. The stadium was entirely privately funded. The original name in 1971 was Schaefer Stadium. When this agreement expired after the 1982 season, Anheuser-Busch took over the rights and named it Sullivan Stadium, effective May 23, 1983. After Sullivan went bankrupt and Robert Kraft purchased the stadium, Kraft renamed the venue 'Foxboro Stadium'. During the ownership of Victor Kiam, ESPN anchor Chris Berman humorously referred to the facility as 'Shaver Stadium'.

In Their Own Story

The air bit at your cheeks as you walked through the turnstiles on a November afternoon in 1985. The concrete walls echoed with the roar of thousands bundled in wool coats and vintage scarves. On the field, players in heavy shoulder pads huddled against the biting wind, steam rising from their breaths. It was just another game day at Foxboro, but you could feel the weight of history in the cold air.

Reader's Guide

The stadium hosted numerous significant soccer matches, including six games in the 1994 FIFA World Cup and five games in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, the 1996 and 1999 MLS Cups, and the inaugural Women's United Soccer Association Founders Cup. The stadium's final soccer match was a qualifying match between the United States and Jamaica. In college football, Holy Cross moved its home game against Boston College to Schaefer Stadium in 1971 due to a snowstorm. Boston College hosted Notre Dame at Schaefer Stadium in 1975, and from 1983 through 1987 used the stadium as an alternate home venue. The stadium hosted numerous concerts and events, including The Monsters of Rock Festival Tour, The Vans Warped Tour, the WWF King of the Ring tournaments in 1985 and 1986, and the Drum Corps International World Championships in 1994. By the late 1990s, Foxboro Stadium had become functionally obsolete by modern NFL standards, lacking luxury boxes and having poor plumbing and amenities.

Did You Know?

• Foxboro Stadium was demolished in 2002, not 2001.
• The stadium's original name was Schaefer Stadium, after the brewery.
• It was one of the few major league stadiums of its era that was entirely privately funded.
• The stadium hosted six games in the 1994 FIFA World Cup and five in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup.
• A natural grass field was installed before the start of the 1991 season.