dpThe title games for Divisions 1 through 8 are scheduled to be played in four weeks, and it’s unclear where they will be held.
Gillette had been the home of the MIAA’s Super Bowls since 2007.
“The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association was informed late last week that the utilization of Gillette Stadium for the MIAA Football Championships is no longer an option,” the MIAA’s statement read.
“We thank the Patriots organization for hosting this event for nearly two decades.
“Whereas the 2026 MIAA Football Tournament begins this week, we will work diligently to secure host sites that provide the best possible championship experience for our student athletes and our school communities.”
A Gillette Stadium spokesperson said in a statement that “scheduling constraints and the associated logistics” from the Revolution’s playoff schedule and Patriots’ home game on Dec. 6 made it impossible for the stadium to host this year.
However, the spokesperson said that they “look forward to hosting this event again in the future.”
In response to that, an MIAA spokesperson said:
“The future we are dealing with is now. We were left in the lurch and will be doing everything we can in the next four weeks to provide our student athletes with a memorable championship experience that they deserve.“
Because of its winter sports schedule, the MIAA must conclude the football season no later than the first week of December. That conflicts with the Revolution’s potential home playoff games Dec. 2 and 5, which would see both teams use the stadium turf for practice the day before; and a Dec. 6 game between the Patriots and Bills.
Reilly Christie, the Malden Catholic athletic director and state football tournament director, said the MIAA was assessing “all options across the state” as it tries to find a new field ― or, more likely, multiple fields ― with suitable parking, seating, locker rooms, lights, and concessions.
Hosting games at a cavernous NFL stadium has never been a major moneymaker for the MIAA. Tournament revenues have taken a nosedive in recent years, while administrative costs have skyrocketed, the Globe detailed in a March story.
The MIAA says it receives $7 out of every $20 ticket sold at Gillette, which has been the home of the New England Patriots since 2002. Service fees baked into ticket prices reduce those direct revenues.
Attendance has been spotty, at best, in a stadium that seats more than 64,000. Game coverage on TV and streaming services is a contributing factor.
Last year, poor weather was cited as the reason the combined attendance for eight Super Bowls was just 16,800. That was a drop from approximately 19,000 in 2024. Recent years prior drew around 22,000.
St. John’s Prep coach Brian St. Pierre, whose team is the No. 1 seed in Division 1, said it was a “shocking” development so late in the current season.
“They’re going to be scrambling,” he said. “It’s a month away.”
St. Pierre said that while he was disappointed for players who were eager to play on a pro field, Gillette’s size made it a lacking host for high school games.
“Playing in an NFL stadium is great for the kids, but it stinks in terms of feeling the crowd, feeling the energy,” said St. Pierre, a former NFL quarterback who has led St. John’s Prep to Gillette in five of the last seven years. “You could hear a pin drop in there. Even if you have 10,000 people, it’s like nobody showed up.”
When St. Pierre played at the Prep in 1997, they played at Boston University’s Nickerson Field, which no longer hosts football. He suggested Boston College or Harvard as suitable places for this year’s games. Stonehill has hosted. Randolph coach and athletic director Jon Marshall wondered if nearby Curry, or another one of the myriad colleges in the area, would step up.
The MIAA holds its other championship games at a mix of pro, college, and high school sites.
Boys’ and girls’ basketball head to Tsongas Center in Lowell, hockey to TD Garden, and baseball to Polar Park in Worcester.
Indoor track competes in Brighton at the Track at New Balance. MIT and Boston University host swimming. Soccer, volleyball, and field hockey finals are contested at high schools.
Football’s move to Gillette in 2007 seemed like the start of a happy marriage. The MIAA was struggling to find places to play and Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he was “thrilled” to play host — particularly since they had recently replaced their natural grass field with turf, which opened the door for an all-day buffet of games that wouldn’t destroy the playing surface.
“Since our family bought this team, we have wanted to do everything we can to encourage all youth sports, but especially football,” Kraft said then. “We wanted to have the high school Super Bowl games played here at Gillette Stadium because we can still identify with our youth and remember the thrill of going to the different venues.”
At the time, Kraft spoke of high school championships at Gillette becoming tradition in Massachusetts.
“Our hope is that [high school] Super Bowls, at least as long as I’m living, are played here,” Kraft said. “And it’s also in keeping with what we hope to do here at Patriot Place. We will be recording all events that happen in high school football at The Hall at Patriot Place.
“We hope to honor every team that wins the Super Bowl each year there, and also hopefully 50 or 100 years from now as relatives come back, they’ll be able to use our files and The Hall at Patriot Place to see their relatives and how they played football earlier on.”
Will this be a one-off, or will Gillette once again be the place where confetti falls for local champs? Coaches were hopeful it wasn’t the end.
“The thought of going there drives the kids to work extremely hard,” said Fairhaven coach Derek Almeida, whose teams (including his former school, Falmouth) have been to Gillette four times in the last decade. “No matter where you play, it’s going to be intense, but playing at the big house, the epicenter of New England sports, Tom Brady’s house …”
Marshall felt gratitude his team finished its season in Foxborough three times in the last five years.
“Don’t take things for granted,” Marshall said. “We talk a lot in our program about how unique it was to have those kinds of experiences, and how blessed we were to have played there.”
He hopes the MIAA finds “a venue of distinction” to host this year’s title games.
They’d better work fast.
Matt Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on BlueSky at mattyports.bsky.social.
