What’s the challenge with having natural grass for all North American sports stadiums?

The Game Room
1

There’s been a lot of chatter about the artificial turf at MetLife stadium causing severe injuries to very important SF 49ers players last weekend. I remember since the days of AstroTurf that natural grass is widely considered to simply be far superior, whether for football, baseball or soccer. I assume the same for lacrosse, field hockey, etc. It seems every few years, a new version of artificial turf comes out that purports to be as good as, or even better than, natural grass. But it never lives up to the test of time, hence we get more versions.

If you’re putting up multi-billion dollar stadiums, shouldn’t they at least conform to the preferences of the athletes? Presumably, domed stadiums would be a challenge, but I would think that artificial sunlight and modern technology could make it happen. Also, I remember that during the last World Cup in the US, they would slide in grass surfaces for the games. I don’t think FIFA would allow artificial turf for anything of significance.

Is cost the reason? If so, I would think that preventing severe injuries, or even preserving the knees, of your best athletes would be a high ROI.

So what are the challenges?

2

Artificial turf requires less maintenance, so it boils down to less expense. Note that stadiums are usually not built by the team, but rather the municipalities, and they have to watch the expenses.

It’s also a problem if you’re playing multiple sports in the same stadium. A turf would get chewed up badly for an NFL game, which would be a problem if there were a baseball game a day or two later. Similarly, a baseball diamond has dirt portions that could create problems for football (and it doesn’t look good on camera).

3

The playing field at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ, home of the NFL Cardinals, can actually be moved outside of the stadium so it can get natural sunlight and so that other events can be held inside the stadium without causing damage to the turf.

4

The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is similar, but they slide into an underground area (parking lot?) and have artificial lights and robotic lawnmower (like a roomba) and, I presume, irrigation. There’s an artificial turf under it for other things.
I assume the artificial turf is used more often otherwise, I’d think, it would have made more sense to have the real turf in the earth and exposed to the actual sun and rain and roll the artificial one out of storage when needed. With this, the real grass needs to be maintained while in ‘storage’ as well as the considerable weight of moving not just the grass, but the dirt, water, drainage etc as well.

5

For the NFL and MLB at least, there are no duel use stadiums left. I think the Oakland Coliseum was the last. MLS and NFL do share stadiums.

To the OP, I don’t think it’s “artificial turf” per se that’s the problem. Seattle uses fake grass, and I think the players are fine with it. In fact, they might prefer it to a muddy natural mess.

6

Colleges sometimes use the NFL stadium as well, not as much of an issue this year, but definitely has been and will be.

The stadiums exist to make money, not serve as a shrine to the NFL.

7

As stated, it is far easier to maintain. But also some athletes actually prefer artificial turf - it is easier to make a cut on artificial turf than natural grass, which appeals to NFL wide receivers and running backs.

8

While there are some players who prefer turf, recent surveys among NFL players show that a strong majority prefer playing on natural grass, and most of them feel that a grass field is safer.

From this article: 73% of NFL players prefer grass, 18% prefer turf, and the remaining 9% have no preference.

From this article: 82% of NFL players feel that artificial turf contributes to more injuries, 89% feel that it contributes to more soreness and fatigue, and 90% believe that it can shorten their careers.

The second article also shows that, in the NFL, artificial turf leads to higher rates of knee injuries, ankle injuries, and non-contact injuries. But, in addition, it contains information illustrating that a turf field has a lower total cost to install and maintain, which is, as several posters have already noted, is a big part of the reason why it’s popular.

9

Wow, is that the Hamster? He is not looking youthful. Shows what years working with Jeremy will do to a man.

10

Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t one of the problems with having every stadium have natural grass, the fact that grass doesn’t grow particularly well in domed stadiums? The version I heard was, the reason Astroturf was invented was because the grass fields in the Astrodome kept dying out. I suppose you could “cart in” a grass field for each home game, but that would seem to be a lot of work.

11

This is correct, and you’re right, that’s why AstroTurf was originally invented.

There are some stadiums, like those noted upthread by @cochrane and @Joey_P where they do slide the field outside (or to a separate area) for growing, but it’s pretty uncommon. There are also some stadiums which have retractable domes, which allow them to close the roof for games in inclement weather, but otherwise keep them open to let the grass grow.

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The version I heard was that the grass was doing fine, then the outfielders started complaining about losing the ball in the sun (how original), so they painted over the roof and then the grass died.

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Not so much that they were losing the ball in the sun, but in the rafters. The rafters created such a confusing patchwork of light and dark, you couldn’t see anything up there.

Can you spot the ball in this picture (if in fact there is one)?

14

The Astrodome was very ill conceived, that’s for sure.

It’s generally all about money. Turf’s cheap, and it came into vogue back when the builders preferred multi use stadia.

It’s now out of fashion in a lot of cases; the only MLB stadiums that use it are Tampa Bay, which is the only fixed dome, and Toronto, who put it in for cost reasons and the stadium just can’t be converted very easily. Why the NFL uses it TODAY is a total mystery to me, though. MetLife cost a bazillion dollars, so cheaping out on a proper playing surface is an odd move.

Of course, “artificial turf” is not really accurately applied to all these fields. The turf to be found in a stadium in 1977 bore little resemblance to the stuff they can install today.

15

The new NFL stadium in Los Angeles has an artificial turf field. They spent something like five billion on it and it looks like no expense was spared, so presumably they could have real grass.

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It is in fact the most expensive sports stadium ever built, by a wide margin.

17

They tried natural grass in Giants Stadium from 2000 to 2002 but the field conditions were frequently awful. Just terrible. When they switched to FieldTurf (the modern kind with the rubber pellets) pretty much everyone saw it as a massive improvement, and that was logically carried forward to the new stadium

For me personally, I prefer FieldTurf over bare dirt that’s been painted green, that’s for sure.

18

An American football game that’s played on natural grass is invariably brutal to the grass itself. The cleats tear up the grass to start with, and when you have players digging into their stances, and then explosively taking off at the snap of the ball, it’s not uncommon for them to be tearing up big chunks of turf, especially in wet weather.

Under normal circumstances, an NFL stadium hosts 10-12 games per year (2 preseason games, 8 regular season games, and maybe 1 or 2 postseason games), and there’s a tremendous amount of work (and expense) that goes into rehabilitating the surface after each game.

Also, in northern cities, the second half of the season is a period of time in which a grass surface goes dormant for the winter. In, say, Green Bay or Foxboro, even an excellent grounds crew isn’t going to be able to get a natural grass surface to do much re-growing in November and December. So, in those stadiums, if they have natural grass (as Lambeau Field always has), the condition of the field in the late season is simply not going to be that great.

At most stadiums, the field is used, more or less, once every 2 weeks (as teams play half of their games on the road), and that gives the field crew more time to fix the surface (and, in warmer weather, more time for the grass to re-grow). But, at Giants Stadium (and, now, at MetLife Stadium), they are home to two NFL teams, and the field is used pretty much every weekend from August through December. So, that’s two times the abuse of the playing surface, and less time between each game to repair it.

19

Fair enough, but you could have multiple grass surfaces to roll in and out. Again, they would certainly do it for a World Cup game. Heck, I’ve been to soccer games in MetLife that are on grass. Friendlies, even!

20

Before 2000, Giants Stadium had that horrific old-style turf like in Philly’s Vet Stadium. Essentially thin carpet on top of concrete. “Turf Burn” was a particularly gross-looking consequence for many of the players.

So they switched to natural grass and everyone hailed it as infinitely better. But then as the season progressed, and into the next couple seasons, it became abundantly clear that “grass” was not a thing that could survive two teams playing there during a typical northeast fall/winter. (Or a single concert, but I think maybe they took the grass out for concerts? How would that work? I would remember that, I would think, as I went to both a Jets game and concert at Giants stadium during those three years. My memory isn’t what it used to be, though.)

But at that point, FieldTurf was the exciting new innovation in artificial turn. It’s not just carpet on concrete, but actually sort of absorbs some of the impact like grass and dirt do. And see those pellets spray up as the receiver drags his foot? That helps with the cushioning and helps keep the “blades” standing up like grass. No more turf burn, it’s vastly superior to the old turf, and offers a superior playing experience to shitty grass. Not as good as pristine grass, but nothing is.

MetLife Stadium’s grass option is “shitty grass.” If ever a NY team should miracle its way into a home playoff game, the best it could hope for is the clumpy, uneven mess similar seen during the 2000 NFC Championship Game at Giants Stadium:

On the plus side, there’s actually grass on the field; it’s not dirt painted green. On the downside, looking through a few of those plays at the normal camera angle, I think green-painted dirt might actually be better. I’d definitely prefer FieldTurf to that grass.

This pretty much sums up the thought process on why they went with Field Turf in the new stadium. They would have continued to pay the millions per year (I seem to remember hearing $7 million per year, but ownership was super excited to bring grass in) to maintain a grass field if it could be maintained, but in practice it turned out that it really couldn’t.

Too many football teams, too many concerts, too many MLS soccer games, too many events in general. Natural grass isn’t really an option. The “new” (at the time) FieldTurf seemed like a miracle cure.

Is there a new better artificial turn now? Is it a question of MetLife being accused of using old-style turf? Grass isn’t really an option; which turf should they put in? The kind they already have?