Along with the upgrade to the Football Bowl Subdivision a
nd the Mid-American Conference, UMass will upgrade to a new home venue.
McGuirk Stadium, which holds 17,000 fans, has been the home of Minutemen football since 1965, but at Wednesday's press conference, the team announced an agreement with Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, to host UMass home games through 2016. The stadium, located in neighboring Foxborough, can accommodate 68,756.
McGuirk Stadium would have been the smallest venue in the MAC. Instead, Gillette Stadium will be the largest.
“We don’t pay an outright rental fee, but we have a revenue-sharing fee,” said UMass Athletic Director John McCutcheon, adding that the team will likely play its entire home schedule at the stadium the next two years and would play at least four games there each year through 2016.
“We’re not naïve about this,” McCutcheon said. “There’s a lot of work we have ahead of us. The opportunity for us to play at Gillette Stadium is an opportunity in itself for us.”
Temple, which joined the MAC as a football-only school in 2007, also shares its home with an NFL team. The Owls and Philadelphia Eagles play at Lincoln Financial Field, which holds 68,532.
The football stadiums of the 12 full-member MAC schools each accommodate between 20,000 and 31,000 fans. Ohio’s Peden Stadium has a capacity of 24,000.
“I think that’s probably out of necessity right now,” coach Frank Solich said. “I think that they may have to get a few things done with their stadium, and I believe that, eventually, that they’ll be playing in their stadium.”
