back to campus, and upgraded its indoor training facilities. Improvements Lights were installed in the stadium for the 2008 football season, permitting UMass to play night games at home on a regular basis. The first game played under the permanent lights was the season opener on August 30, 2008, with UMass beating Albany 28-16. A video scoreboard was installed during the 2009 season. A new FieldTurf playing surface was installed in McGuirk Stadium for the 2014 football season. The plaza on the east side of the stadium behind the ticket gates, MinuteFan Park, hosts food and souvenir vendors and other exhibitors on game days. On April 20, 2011, the school officially accepted an invitation to become a football-only member of the Division I FBS Mid-American Conference. McGuirk Stadium was not considered suitable for FBS football, however. It would have been prohibitively difficult to meet the minimum FBS attendance of 15,000 fans per game, and its press box and replay facilities were well below MAC standards. Consequently, the 2011 season was the last at McGuirk Stadium before a major renovation project to upgrade it to FBS standards. For the 2012 and 2013 seasons, the Minutemen played all of their home games at the New England Patriots' home field, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, east of UMass on the other side of the state. The renovation added a new training facility and locker rooms on the stadium's north end, called the Football Performance Center. The old press box was demolished, with a new box constructed to two levels with more TV and radio booths and added luxury suites. The cost of this construction was estimated at $20 million and was completed in time for the 2014 season at a cost of $34.5 million. Coaching staff and players took occupancy of the Football Performance Center in July 2014. The deal with Gillette Stadium called for UMass to play several games per year in Foxborough from 2014 through 2016, and left open the possibility for some games to be played on campus at McGuirk Stadium. One of the main reasons for this deal was the MAC's TV contract with ESPN typically scheduled a handful of MAC games to be played on Tuesday nights in October and November. If UMass were scheduled a home matchup for one of the weeknight games, the game could be played on campus, negating the need to bus students approximately 100