Stadium Surface - FieldTurf

Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is one of more than 20 universities that have FieldTurf in their stadiums, including Michigan, Nebraska, Washington, Oregon and Kansas State. Five NFL teams are playing their 2003 home games on FieldTurf, including the Seattle Seahawks (Seahawks Stadium), Detroit Lions (Ford Field), New York Giants (Giants Stadium), New York Jets (Giants Stadium) and Atlanta Falcons (Georgia Dome). An additional 15 NFL teams practice on FieldTurf at their training complexes. MLB's Tampa Bay Devil Rays play their home games on FieldTurf at Tropicana Field. FieldTurf was also the first artificial surface ever approved by FIFA for World Cup play.

FieldTurf has about 400 installations worldwide in 20+ countries in the past four years. An especially recent flurry of activity comes on the heels of the NFL Players Association's recent league-wide survey in which the league's players resoundingly selected FieldTurf as their artificial surface of choice. In the survey of 1280 NFL players who were asked to rank the league's 32 stadium fields on a variety of factors, FieldTurf (at Seattle's Seahawks Stadium) ranked third, which marked the first time that an artificial surface had ever cracked the NFLPA's top ten. Amazingly, NFL players rated FieldTurf ahead of 20 of the league's 22 natural grass fields. The findings were announced this past January at an NFLPA press conference during Super Bowl week in San Diego.

FieldTurf is a synthetic surface that replicates the look, feel, texture and playability of natural grass, while also greatly reducing the number of injuries previously associated with artificial turf surfaces. Those factors, combined with FieldTurf's durability and resulting cost effectiveness, have made it "the choice" for the athletic fields and sports complexes for universities, professional teams and high schools.

FieldTurf has a patented mixture of sand and rubber infill that almost exactly replicates the soil in which the best natural grass fields are grown. The footing on this specially designed infill is just as it is on a natural grass field. Additionally, the use of only silica sand and cryogenic rubber enhances the vertical drainage of the system. The synthetic grass blades, which are surrounded by the infill, are made from soft polyethylene and polypropylene fibers that are designed to resist extreme weather and temperature conditions.

For additional information on FieldTurf, check out their web site at www.fieldturf.com.