Robert Kraft and Kraft Sports Entertainment LLC filed a complaint on Monday against Foxborough, accusing the town of improperly charging about $1 million in administrative fees tied to a stadium licensing fight. The filing puts a formal dispute around a fee package the Patriots say goes far beyond what the town is allowed to collect.
The Patriots say Foxborough only has state authorization to charge up to $100 per year to renew stadium entertainment licenses. The town says this year’s license requires Kraft Sports Entertainment to reimburse it for vital public safety services needed for events at Gillette Stadium, a position that turns the license from a routine renewal into a test of how far local officials can go when the stadium hosts major events.
That fight matters now because the complaint lands after Foxborough renewed the stadium’s annual event license on significantly different terms this year. A stadium spokesperson said the town and Gillette Stadium have worked “cooperatively and thoughtfully” for more than two decades, but also acknowledged that the renewed license came with a sharp change in how the town wanted the stadium to pay for event-related costs. The Patriots have played at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough since 2002, and the team has been housed in Foxborough since 1971.
The break in that long relationship is sharper because the new fees follow an earlier dispute in March over $7.8 million in federal money earmarked for security at World Cup matches. Gillette Stadium was awarded seven World Cup matches, and Foxborough has tied its license demands to the public safety needs that come with those events. The Patriots argue the Foxborough Select Board imposed the charges without seeking comment from residents and without presenting witnesses or evidence, and say state law required the board to act in a quasi-judicial capacity and give due process before adding conditions to the longstanding license.
The gap at the center of the case is how the roughly $1 million figure is made up. The Patriots say the town has already been collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper administrative fees and related levies, while Foxborough says the new license is meant to recover the cost of public safety services. What comes next is a legal and political test for a town of around 18,000 residents that has spent decades living with the stadium and now has to defend why the latest bill should stand.
