FOOTBALL: Fenway Park set to host Yale-Harvard game next year

1:53 am, Aug 28, 2025

Staff Reporter

Christina Lee, Senior Photographer

The annual Yale-Harvard game will look quite different next year.

The storied rivalry, approaching its 141st showdown this November, will leave the familiar confines of New Haven and Boston in 2026 for a different venue: Boston’s Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, according to similar Wednesday afternoon news releases from Harvard Athletics and Major League Baseball.

There was no announcement from Yale Athletics on Wednesday.

The 2026 game will be just the second time in history that the matchup is played under the shadow of the park’s signature Green Monster wall. The first came in 2018, when Harvard Stadium was under renovation. That year, the move drew curiosity and excitement as the oldest college football rivalry played out in one of Major League Baseball’s most renowned ballparks.

For players on the field, it’s a unique experience that may turn into a highlight of their athletic careers.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play a historic game at a historic field,” Robby Tattersall ’27 wrote to the News. He will be a senior on the team when the Bulldogs play the Crimson at Fenway next year.

Since the rivalry began in 1875, Yale and Harvard have faced off 140 times, with the games typically alternating between the Yale Bowl and Harvard Stadium. 

The Yale Bowl, with a maximum capacity of over 64,000, dwarfs Harvard’s horseshoe-shaped stadium, which seats just over 25,000. The discrepancy has long been a point of frustration, particularly for Yale students, who often find themselves scrambling for tickets when The Game is in Boston’s Allston neighborhood, across the Charles River from Cambridge.

Those tensions reached a boiling point in 2022, the first time The Game returned to Harvard Stadium following the 2018 renovations.

Tickets sold out within hours after an accidental release, and they carried an additional sting: Yale students were asked to pay $25 — a policy that carried over to last year. During years when the teams meet at the Yale Bowl, Harvard and Yale students alike have received free admission.

Yale administrators attempted to address the issue last year by implementing a lottery system to distribute tickets for Harvard Stadium, giving upperclassmen priority. Demand still far outpaced supply, leaving many students shut out. A steep resale market quickly emerged, with some tickets listed on the popular campus social media app Fizz for over $100.

Moving the 2026 game to Fenway may alleviate some of these recurring challenges. Fenway Park seats roughly 37,000 for baseball games and can be reconfigured for football — making it larger than Harvard Stadium, which seats roughly 25,000, though significantly smaller than the Yale Bowl, which seats over 61,000.

“Hosting The Game at Fenway Park is an incredible honor,” Sam Kennedy, the president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, wrote in a statement included in the MLB news release.

Of course, the 2026 matchup still feels a long while away for the Bulldogs. The upcoming season is at the forefront of their minds.

“Being able to showcase what Ivy League football has to offer is an unreal opportunity for both programs at such a historic ballpark. That being said, we’re focused on right now and this upcoming season,” Nick Conforti ’26 said. 

The 141st playing of The Game in November will take place at the Yale Bowl.

In 2018, Yale lost the 135th playing, 27–45, at Fenway Park.

Correction, Aug. 28: This article previously misstated the city where The Game is typically played when Harvard hosts. It is Boston, not Cambridge.

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