The Great Grass Debate

With FIFA mandating that grass fields be used for the World Cup, it meant that grass would be installed at all 11 NFL stadiums hosting games this summer, even if they ordinarily play on turf.  Which, of course, led to the inevitable calls that the NFL should make a similar mandate and those stadiums should switch to grass permanently, as if it was that easy.  I hate to break it to those people, but all seven NFL stadiums that are having grass temporarily installed for the World Cup will go back to having turf fields once the season starts.

If it were up to the players, all NFL fields would be grass.  They've always been clear about their preference.  Although, the common belief that turf leads to more injuries is simply incorrect.  It was true back in the 80s and 90s when turf was merely a carpet placed on top of a cement floor, often with baseball cutouts, there were more injuries on turf than on grass.  But modern artificial turf surfaces are so good and so similar to grass that there's very little difference.  In fact, the number of injuries is pretty much equal.

Here's the thing, too.  Every team has an indoor facility at their complex.  Wanna guess what type of field they use in the indoor facilities?  I'll give you a hint...it isn't grass!  Yet there's no clamoring for the indoor facilities to use grass.  Just the stadiums.  Even though, in most of them, it's simply not practical.

Including the preseason, NFL teams have 10 home games a year.  SoFi Stadium and MetLife Stadium each host 20 games per season since they're both the home of two teams.  There's always at least one week every season where the Rams and Chargers or Giants and Jets are both home.  In August, the Giants and Jets have home preseason games in back-to-back days.  Do you think the grass would hold up in the fourth quarter of that second game?

Beyond that are simply the practical effects of trying to maintain a grass field in the Northeast.  Winter weather isn't exactly easy to deal with.  Now imagine trying to keep a grass field playable in the Winter!  Green Bay has a heated field, as will Buffalo's new stadium.  But the other cold-weather cities that have open-air stadiums with grass fields have some of the worst field conditions in the league.  The Steelers share Acrisure Stadium with Pitt.  They also play high school championship games on that field.  It's notorious around the NFL for how bad and chewed up it gets.

As someone who lives and works in sports in the Northeast, I can tell you firsthand how having a turf field is actually vital logistically.  Now, college sports and their multipurpose fields are different, I get that.  But the principle remains the same.  Field maintenance is easier, significantly so, on turf.  Especially in areas where weather might be a concern, at least the condition of the field won't be.

Two Northeast stadiums hosting the World Cup are normally turf--MetLife Stadium and Gillette Stadium.  Both of their predecessors--Giants Stadium and Foxboro Stadium--had natural grass instead of turf for a few years in the early 2000s.  At Giants Stadium, the experiment only lasted three seasons before they reverted back to turf.  And MetLife has been turf since it opened.  There are practical reasons for this.  Reasons that make sense when you think about the stadium's many uses beyond just football.

NFL games are far from the only events that take place in these stadiums.  That's a very important (and relevant) point.  In fact, NFL games make up only a tiny portion of the stadium's schedule in a given year.  All those concerts and college football games and everything else are vital to the stadium's bottom line.  And they all require either using or covering up the field.  Just imagine what that would do to the grass, which would then need to be replaced each time!

One of the reasons FIFA was able to install grass at these NFL stadiums and have it remain pristine for the duration of the World Cup is because they were given exclusive use for that entire timeframe.  Every World Cup stadium was taken offline a month before the tournament, which gave FIFA time to install the grass and get it to the exact right specifications.  More importantly, since the games are the only things taking place in the stadium during that span, the grass has time to rest.  That's an aspect of grass maintenance that's just as important as any other.  It's why Wimbledon didn't play on the middle Sunday until a few years ago.  It's why golf courses (or at least certain areas of them) close at certain times of the year.

It's also not as easy as resodding the field and calling it a day.  The grass needs to set before it's usable.  Which means the stadium needs to be taken offline every time you were to do it.  It's expensive, too.  So, it really would defeat the purpose since, in order to cover that cost, you'd have to schedule more non-NFL events, which would require more resodding the field. 

Houston and Dallas, meanwhile, have retractable roofs, while SoFi Stadium is an indoor facility.  That creates its own challenges to maintaining a natural grass field.  Simply put, an indoor setting isn't ideal for growing grass.  Especially to the standard necessary for an NFL-quality playing field. 

When the Astrodome was first built in the mid-60s, they tried having a grass field and it quickly died.  As a result, Astroturf was created.  Artificial playing surfaces have come a long way since then.  To the point where you can barely tell the difference. 

And grass technology has come a long way, too.  That's why they're able to temporarily install grass in the indoor stadiums that are hosting the World Cup while maintaining its quality.  We aren't to that point yet, though.  Maybe in the next few years, we will.  But right now, it's still more practical and logistically feasible to have a turf field.  Especially since these stadiums serve so many other purposes besides just NFL games.

But, of course, the players don't know or care about this (or both).  All they know is that they see grass fields being put on top of the turf, which to them means it can (and should) be done.  They see it as a "slap in the face," even though if they were to get their wish and get grass fields, they might not even be as good as the turf fields currently being used in those stadiums.  It would be totally impractical to even try playing on grass full-time, and it would cause more problems than it would solve. 

Yes, there are a few NFL stadiums hosting the World Cup that have grass full-time.  Miami even manages to have it at Hard Rock Stadium despite both the Hurricanes and Dolphins playing there.  Miami's in Florida, where the weather's much more conducive.  They also frequently replace the grass, which they're able to do because they grow their own.  That's obviously not something every team can do.

The players don't see it that way, though.  They see grass being installed for the World Cup as proof of concept and don't understand why there can't be natural grass in all 30 stadiums, especially since that's their stated preference.  Don't count on that happening anytime soon, however.  Because, as much as the players might want to play on grass, it really doesn't make sense as a full-time option at every stadium.  Whether they like it or not.