Should MLS begin to transition to all grass surfaces?

As far as injuries go, that's not true for soccer. While it has certainly been awhile since I last looked, but in depth studies of Scandanavian leagues found no statistically significant difference between injury rate, or severity of injury between grass and turf. There are differences in type of injuries, but the injuries offset.

However, that isn't true for American football. There is pretty good evidence that in the NFL, teams that play on grass have statistically significantly less injury rate and less severe injuries than teams that play on turf fields.

 

A lot of that would be resolved by negative air pressure drainage in all but the rainiest of situations.

 

Keighley's average rainfall is about the same as a very wet year in Seattle.

 

That doesn't change my comment any. Particularly with the type of rain that Seattle gets, a negative pressure drainage system would keep the field dry in most situations outside of active downpours.

 

----------------THAT is some real rugby !!---------
Yes, soccer would not look good in that, but you can get schedule properly on a grass field and make it work.

 

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I agree with the NFL players to work towards getting rid of the plastic fields.
If they could somehow success, it does help the cause for MLS

As for soccer, while our injuries are somewhat different and who knows the differences in numbers of and type of soccer injuries on turf or soccer, the one
that should be the #1 reason to get rid of the turf is not "lines on a grass" field, but the quality of play. Too many bounces, the ball skidding, the pass of play is too fast and when wet, seems even worse..

Maybe hybrid fields, double down on drainage systems, carefully scheduling until the day ALL MLS teams are in their own stadium and not sharing.

 

Toronto FC has a hybrid surface at BMO Field. They worked with SIS Grass. It’s expensive but the cost goes down every year - and the quality of the field gets better every year.

 

According to a Daily Telegraph report, 19 of 20 Prem clubs have hybrid fields. Barca does. the list is actually pretty long.

 

Since the primary reason MLS teams are on turf is because they share fields with football teams, does anyone know how many NFL teams have hybrid? I know back when hybrid fields first came out that NFL teams would have to do grass overlays part of the way through the season because they couldn't patch the hybrid surface. I did a google search and, so far, I haven't found a list where it is clear if they are hybrid or not.

This one lists the surfaces for each field, but it has the grass fields listed by type of grass and that doesn't tell me if it is hybrid or not since the grass type doesn't matter.

https://edge.twinspires.com/nfl/nfl-stadiums-by-grass-type/

 

If it was hybrid it would say probably say hybrid.

East Carolina, NC State and Mississippi State are listed as "Tifton 419 hybrid Bermuda" on Wikipedia.

Toronto and Cincinnati are the two hybrid surfaces in MLS.

 

This article lists two stadiums as having Desso Grassmaster fields. These are hybrid grass fields.
https://www.nbcsports.com/washingto...l-stadiums-have-artificial-turf-vs-real-grass

Desso's current website (https://www.dessosports.com/) does not list a hybrid product, but did at one time (Via the Wayback Machine) https://web.archive.org/web/20151210154517/http://www.dessosports.com/hybrid-grass

 

Found Grassmaster, has it's own website now.
https://www.grassmastersolutions.com/en

 

According to Wikipedia, Desso was recently taken over by another company and they dropped "Desso" from the Grassmaster brand. So, two different subsidiaries, one called Grassmaster for hybrid and the other called Desso for artificial turf.

 

When TFC was putting in their hybrid pitch there was a press conference or media avail and I’m pretty sure the Director of Grounds said there were 6 NFL teams with hybrid surfaces but that was in 2019. And I can’t find the clip or article.

 

Hull City's Desso Grassmaster pitch has been taking a lot of criticism.


Here's highlights from today's Super League game played in wet conditions.



If you're going to play soccer and football on a grass pitch, even a hybrid pitch, you're going to get brown patches occasionally unless you paint them.

Hull's pitch suffers from the fact that the rugby and soccer seasons overlap at both ends plus there over 40 games per season played on it across both sports.

 

Even hybrid fields require good drainage. If Hull improves their drainage system, it’ll help with the condition of the field.

 

The good news is that Seattle, Vancouver, New England and Atlanta will be playing in grass for the first half of the 2026 season. FIFA regs say that grass must be in place several months ahead of World Cup games.

 

Bad news, there is no indication that these will be permanent installations and are likely to be trays that will be removed and discarded mere hours after the last game in those cities are played.

 

Probably but we can hope.

 

Hmm. Not MLS related but that will be interesting here in Houston. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo runs for 3 weeks typically in March each year. The Rodeo uses NRG stadium and draws 60,000 or more people each night of the run. They will not have the rodeo on grass.

I wonder how several months is defined.

 

Several months would be April, May, June, right? World Cups tend to be mid-June to mid-July, right? That should be enough time to get any grass settled in. Houston also has the advantage that the Dynamo don't play there. I'd imagine the fact that an MLS team plays in the other stadiums is why the grass is to be installed prior to the start of the MLS season.

 

Yes that's the difference between MLS and non-MLS stadiums. Presumably the MLS stadiums will have grass laid over the winter.

 

Good luck laying grass in New England in the winter. But even then, that's why I suspect it will be trays rather than a grass field being laid, especially if it isn't going to be a permanent install.

 

In most domes there is no “settling in”. The grass typically starts dying as soon as they move it in. This several month thing is going to be interesting in some of these stadiums.

 

The image below is from Tottenham's partially roofed stadium, but the concept is the same:



So, it is definitely doable. It would just cost money to by the grow lights on wheels, run them, and, of course, water and fertilize the grass.