Giant video board among renovations at Gillette Stadium
FOXBOROUGH — How many Devin McCourty’s could fit on the new video board above the north end of Gillette Stadium?
Pack the recently retired defensive back — or his brother and former Patriots teammate, Jason — 652 times, answered a promotional video when the 22,200-square-foot screen (370 feet by 60 feet) was unveiled to media and staff Friday afternoon.
Touted by team officials as the largest outdoor video board in the nation, the curved screen — almost five times larger than the flat one it replaced — made its public debut a few hours later at the Patriots annual in-stadium practice for season ticket holders and Foxborough residents (Devin McCourty was also on hand).
While the board is complete, the 250-foot lighthouse behind it is still covered in scaffolding. The tunnel Patriots players typically emerge from every gameday remains blocked off, with mounds of dirt visible.
However, chief operating officer of Kraft Sports & Entertainment Jim Nolan called the half-acre board the “centerpiece” for the $250 million in renovations to both ends of the stadium that began in June 2021.
The message? Gillette Stadium isn’t going anywhere.
“We’re not a stadium that’s looking to rebuild,” Nolan said. “This is our home, and Gillette Stadium will remain our home, as we say, for the next 20 years.”
Nolan and chief marketing officer Jen Ferron said the board would enable a more immersive experience for fans. Ahead of the in-stadium practice, employees tested a display with a QR code allowing fans to go live on the board with their phone camera.
Nolan said game footage will appear two times larger on the new screen, which is big enough to simultaneously display two camera angles of the same play. During Patriots games, a yellow line will help fans visualize the location of the first-down marker.
“We can give people now more than they can get on their TV at home,” Nolan said.
In many ways, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones started the videoboard arms race with the jumbotron at AT&T stadium, which has screens that cover a surface area of more than 25,00 square feet. About eight years later, the Falcons debuted a 63,000-square-foot “Halo Board” that encircled the rooftop opening of MercedesBenz Stadium.
SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the futuristic home of the Rams and Chargers since 2020, went with a similar design on its 70,000-square-foot, 2.2-millionpound board.
Ferron said the design of Gillette Stadium provided the space to compete.
“When we built the stadium [in 2002], there was a lot of open space that was intentionally left that way,” she said. “So that as people’s behaviors changed and
as either technology evolved — or viewing habits — I think this building was designed to allow us to modify the experiences, maybe in a way that other stadiums that were really compactly built from the beginning don’t have the opportunity to do so.”
Ferron said the board allows the stadium to cater to people accustomed to viewing live events with two screens, including their phone.
Approximately 40 people will help manage content on the board on game days, though Nolan said a control room being built will only seat 34.
“What’s interesting about that, none of them have a view of the game,” Nolan said. “They’re just pushing technology to the board. Then there’s another half-adozen [people] who are in a different room with a view of the field to feel what’s going on with the energy inside, and they’re kind of the hosts of the event.”
The control room is the final step in an extended process that could begin only after construction was finished on the new 50,000 square feet of hospitality and function space behind the board. After the overall structure was complete, Ferron said it took
several months to put each panel in place. Getting power to each one took a few more weeks.
The board relayed live action of Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe throwing into the end zone below it during seven-on-seven drills Friday. The screen will make its soccer debut on Monday, when the Revolution host Mexican club Querétaro in the Round of 16 of the Leagues Cup.
The board will be fully functional for the Patriots regular-season opener against the reigning NFC Champion Eagles on Sept. 10, when the control room will be complete.