Should MLS begin to transition to all grass surfaces?

In general, transitioning to grass pitches is a good idea.

The devil is in the details. Interesting you mention Portland -- it would actually be the most expensive place to transition to a grass pitch. There's a creek that runs directly under the stadium. My understanding is that, while a grass field is possible, it would require an extraordinary amount of environmental impact red tape compared to in most other locations. Natural grass isn't happening in Portland unless they build a new stadium.

 

I'm not a fan of the number of field turf fields we're seeing these days, but I do think that those who can do grass generally are playing on grass.
To my eyes, the worst looking field in MLS is Minnesota, which is temporary, I know. But it's somehow just almost exactly not the color of grass. It bugs me whenever I watch a game up there.
That said, I'm not sure Minnesota is an easy place to make a grass field work, at least not in the early and late stages of the season. Same goes for New England. It's just an ugly field.
It is better than the early MLS days, before we had the field turf and the artificial fields still wer rock hard and those high crowns for drainage. I played on a couple of those and they just sucked. The field turf I've played on has been much softer, I didn't notice the turf burn as much, But is that still a thing? In any case, turf sucked, esp in the rain.
But I also see the problems SKC has in maintaining a playable field. They spend a couple million every year or two renovating that, fixing the drainage, returfing, etc, and it still plays like crap a couple times a year. I know the flooding in Houston was nothing near normal, but that poor resodded field was falling apart in large chunks last Sept and Oct.
I prefer games on grass, so I am with you in a general sense. But i get the atttraction of field turf given the US climate(s).

 

You don't understand this? The Revolution is owned by the same people as the New England Patriots. They own Gillette Stadium and get the revenue from stadium events and other uses. It costs the Revs virtually nothing to play there and yet they generate revenue for the Krafts. Why would they go to the expense of building another stadium? Increasing the team value only does you any good if you are going to sell the team. The Krafts have given no indication that they plan to sell the team.

 

Also there's absolutely no difference between CLink and Gillette. If you're going to demand one of those teams install grass to be fair you have to demand both. Attendance isn't a good enough difference considering New England used to average over 20K in the (distant) past.

(I'd throw Atlanta in too but at least there you can make the case that the stadium had specific designs built in for MLS. There's no evidence of that in Seattle or NE despite what fans claim.)

 

Do they?
Let's look at the average high July temps for several MLS cities: Boston 81, Chihcago 84 and Minneapolis 83, and compare to Euro cities such as London, 74, Munich, 74 and Barcelona, 82. Then look at the average lows for January: Boston 22, Chicago 17 and Minneaplis 8, while London, 38, Munich 25 and Barca 40. Minneapolis is dealing with an average summer to winter difference of 75 (these are all f by the way) while Boston gets by with a 59 degree swing. Meanwhile Munich has the most difficult of the euro swings at 49 degrees, while London's is only 36 and Barca is 42.
US cities have wild temp swings. LA doesn't, but they have grass and it's quite good grass. In the US there are cities like Denver where days with 40 degree swings aren't uncommon. As my brother in law here in Berlin notes, "If Germans had to deal with that we'd call in sick 40 weeks a year." (Germans do sick weeks usually, sick days, what's the point, you're still sick at the end of a day, and temperature swings are a primary cause of sick weeks).
US climates are extreme: High highs, low lows, droughts and floods and much worse, hurricanes for example. In a former life, writing in the Midwest about the weather was a staple of my job Here, they write about weather in the US.
Obviously, grass can be grown in the US, and wonderful playing fields can be maintained. But it is a lot more difficult to keep them up summer to winter, and it is therefore much more expensive. And then you have the Atlanta notion that it's simply too hot to ask fans to attend without at least holding out the possiblity of retracting the roof and controlling the climate, so you get an open roof shape which makes natural grass pretty much impossible.
Scandanavian clubs here sometimes have fake grass as well, because natural grass is crazy difficult to keep up.
So yes, I agree that natural grass is preferred. But I think that where it would work, teams have it.
To summarize, people who chose to live in Minneapolis are insane.

 

its not black and white....these teams do a cost-benefit analysis and decide from there. some teams that could have grass but don't ....could very well have grass but simply havent put grass in yet.

this is just another reason (lack of grass) why I do not want MLS to be in bed with the NFL...(a significant % of the turf seems to be from NFL owners/stadiums)

I think the NFL and MLS do not always have parallel/overlapping interests and therefore, owners who own an NFL team and an MLS team are always gonna be suspect i.e. decision-making i.e thier MLS team vs their NFL....let's face it, an NFL team is taking the upper hand vs an MLS team...when owned by the same guy...and this is NOT an issue when dealing with an MLS owner who only owns an MLS team and not an NFL team.

bottomline grass needs to be put in all MLS stadiums....and while we are at it....they all need to be proper dimensions...yankee stadium is a joke for soccer.

 

A good grass field is preferable to any turf field. I think that goes without saying. But a good turf field is better than a bad grass field.

That's the weakness of NFL stadiums: it's extremely difficult to maintain a grass field in good condition with a NFL team playing on it, so any team in a NFL stadium is most likely playing on turf. In Seattle and Atlanta, that may be a worthwhile tradeoff, because they're actually filling NFL stadiums. New England is the one place where they seem to have all the disadvantages of sharing a NFL stadium and none of the advantages.

Outside of NFL stadiums, Portland is sui generis because they would have to sacrifice a downtown location in order to play on grass.

 

Yup.

NE has a bunch of factors that would prevent it from having grass. The primary reason being Bill Belichek and the Patriots. If you could put out a report saying grass would be better for the Patriots style of play, NE would have grass the next day.

Even putting grass for 2/3 of the season would be tough because they would have to rip out the turf and re-install it, meanwhile hope that the grass somehow survives being put in around February only to be taken out in July so that the stadium has a few weeks to re-install the turf. The biggest problems would be cost and if grass can even be installed in the winter at that stadium.

My local NFL team switched back to grass after a decade plus on turf. The one downside is that they stopped playing high school state championship games at the stadium because it is very hard to fix grass in Nov/December.

 

Anyone remember the state of Heinz Field a few years ago? That field was a wreck after a weekend of rain and High School Football playoffs.

One alternative could be a turf/grass hybrid field. Not sure how expensive it is though.

It's currently used in venues in England and in Europe.
https://www.xtragrass-hybrid-turf.com/news-projects/

 

Jeebus. That's really impressive, if it works, which they insist it is. They claim it isn't that expensive on the website

 

The Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL have hybrid fields. It is a different brand than Xtragrass but it incorporates synthetic fibers to strengthen their grass fields. Green Bay is switching from Grassmaster to SISGrass but it is same concept. SISGrass was used at Luzhniki Stadium for the World Cup.

https://www.sispitches.com/products/hybrid-pitch-sisgrass/

 

I thought I'd seen it mentioned that Lincoln Financial Field had a hybrid turf but couldn't find any links to it. Thanks!

 

If it's good enough for a World Cup final, it's good enough for MLS.

 

so to summarize, this thread topic is officially old men standing on the porch yelling at the kids that in their day nobody had or needed these personal music machines and we were better off, etc, etc. and no one is listening because they've all got earbuds in.
To the OP, I was with you, a bit, but I am afraid this was an argument for a previous time. It very much looks as if the case against artificial grass, or at least hybrid turf/grass, fields has lost. A World Cup final is kind of the final nail.

 

Which is why more and more top-flight clubs are installing artificial pitches in Scotland, Holland, Scandinavia, Russia and other countries.

Some of the most famous clubs that have installed artificial turf over the last few years are Ajax, Feyenoord, Boavista, Young Boys and Red Bull Salzburg. AS Nancy played on turf when they were in Ligue 1. Most Swedish top-flight teams play on turf as do Norwegian and Finnish teams.

Several top Dutch teams are moving back to grass due to players' worries about unproven cancer links.

The Football League had a vote on allowing artificial turf a few years ago and the result was a tie. With recent improvements in turf and the increasingly extreme weather in England I think they will approve turf whenever they next vote.

And when you consider that the vast number teams of teams in the US cities play on turf, most MLS teams train on turf, and most kids grow up playing soccer on turf, you have to wonder if the risk of injury is as great as it's cracked up to be.

New York City replaced most of its grass pitches with turf a few years ago (to protests) and looking around the web I found that Berlin has 450 synthetic turf pitches.

New England played on grass from 2002 to 2006. At the end of the Pats 2006 season the field was a patch of mud and they switched to turf.

West Ham

MBS doesn't get enough direct sunlight...and United play the best football in MLS.

 

???
Neither play on art. turf. In fact Feyenoord for years on end are voted to have the best grass pitch of the league.
I think you confuse the alarm in amateur soccer clubs about those risks to children.
In my opinion it's rather strange to see a link with cancer and the art. turf (in fact it's about the surface beneath the artificial grass, made of granulted car tires), as in the air are more particles afloat from wear of car tires and asphalt then any pitch can deliver or even all pitches together in a day of traffic.

 

Are you sure?
As this site notes, they play on a hybrid field, they practice on fully artificial.
"According to Ruud Gullit, former trainer at Feyenoord, the benefits of Desso GrassMaster are clear: "You can play under all circumstances. The field is always even. It is great for the football players themselves to know that this kind of turf is available. You can simply play great football on it, also because this turf constantly allows you to play with shorter studs. And it is better for players sensitive to injuries. I only hear positive things."

 

All that being said, I'm not sure I'd put hybrid turf in the same category as fully artificial turf. Hybrid turf lacks the rubber filler material that seems to cause many of artificial turf's problems (e.g. hot surface, purported cancer link) and still relies partially on grass roots for stability.