Request to ban turf at Ford Field

[LionArkie]

https://www.mlive.com/lions/2022/11/nflpa-president-calls-for-immediate-ban-of-turf-used-at-ford-field.html
 

significantly more ankle injuries according to the article.

one of the things I have never understood about the lions is why play in a dome with turf? Seems like it would have been more advantageous to play outdoors on grass due to the northern location.

[diehardlionfan]

11 hours ago, LionArkie said:

https://www.mlive.com/lions/2022/11/nflpa-president-calls-for-immediate-ban-of-turf-used-at-ford-field.html
 

significantly more ankle injuries according to the article.

one of the things I have never understood about the lions is why play in a dome with turf? Seems like it would have been more advantageous to play outdoors on grass due to the northern location.

The Turf at Ford field has always been a problem. They replaced it, and it’s still a problem. It’s one of the reasons the Lions seem to have more injuries.

The Dome? It’s pretty easy. Northern climate, fan comfort.

 

[Just Want A Title]

If we have the technology to grow massive amounts of cannabis indoors maybe they can come up with a similar solution for grass turf.  They would just have to change out the opaque roof material to allow more sunlight to hit the field and augment the sunlight with indoor lighting and watering.  Detroit has plenty of engineers.  Figure it out.

[LionArkie]

5 hours ago, diehardlionfan said:

The Turf at Ford field has always been a problem. They replaced it, and it’s still a problem. It’s one of the reasons the Lions seem to have more injuries.

The Dome? It’s pretty easy. Northern climate, fan comfort.

 

My counter to northern climate would be Chicago and Green Bay. Both of which give you a good home field advantage.

[diehardlionfan]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:56 PM, LionArkie said:

My counter to northern climate would be Chicago and Green Bay. Both of which give you a good home field advantage.

I don’t disagree. However given Ford field is the teams second dome it appears outdoor isn’t in the cards.

[diehardlionfan]

On 11/13/2022 at 12:03 PM, Just Want A Title said:

If we have the technology to grow massive amounts of cannabis indoors maybe they can come up with a similar solution for grass turf.  They would just have to change out the opaque roof material to allow more sunlight to hit the field and augment the sunlight with indoor lighting and watering.  Detroit has plenty of engineers.  Figure it out.

There is a major difference between a greenhouse and a domed stadium.

[LionArkie]

3 hours ago, diehardlionfan said:

I don’t disagree. However given Ford field is the teams second dome it appears outdoor isn’t in the cards.

Yeah I get it. I just said I never understood why we went that route. If it’s for fan comfort, ok I guess. But other northern teams don’t do it. Fan comfort, one would assume, is so the lions can make more money. But the thing that makes money is winning. I would think having a better home field advantage would ultimately be more profitable, but that’s a lot of assumptions I’m making.

[Karnage84]

5 minutes ago, LionArkie said:

Yeah I get it. I just said I never understood why we went that route. If it’s for fan comfort, ok I guess. But other northern teams don’t do it. Fan comfort, one would assume, is so the lions can make more money. But the thing that makes money is winning. I would think having a better home field advantage would ultimately be more profitable, but that’s a lot of assumptions I’m making.

I think a part of it is that it allows a lot more functionality for events outside of football. 

[LionArkie]

3 hours ago, Karnage84 said:

I think a part of it is that it allows a lot more functionality for events outside of football. 

That’s a really good point.

[Sllim Pickens]

15 hours ago, Karnage84 said:

I think a part of it is that it allows a lot more functionality for events outside of football. 

I bet thats the biggest part of it.  They dont want to go 5 months without concerts and monster trucks and the revenue that brings in.  It still seems like with money and technology, they could make it work.  

[Karnage84]

11 hours ago, LionArkie said:

That’s a really good point.

I was having dinner with a friend of mine at a game for our local NHL team. He works for one of the organization's that has a team in the city and is more so involved on the operations side (non-sport). We were discussing the various money making ventures and the strategy behind bringing in different events (rock concerts vs comedy shows vs children's entertainment, etc.). It really opened up my perspective on that stuff. The Lions only have 8-9 regular season games per year. What are you doing with that space for the other 356 days of the year? 

So if we go with this thought process - how likely is it that a grass field is going to be damaged by an event like a big rock concert or monster trucks? How much easier is it to do this with a turf field? My son is really into monster trucks (he's 3), and I was watching time-lapse of an arena being set up for a Monster Jam event. They're throwing plywood over top of the surface and then bringing in truckloads of dirt.  I'm going to assume that it's easier to manage this with a turf field. 

[Sllim Pickens]

21 minutes ago, Karnage84 said:

I was having dinner with a friend of mine at a game for our local NHL team. He works for one of the organization's that has a team in the city and is more so involved on the operations side (non-sport). We were discussing the various money making ventures and the strategy behind bringing in different events (rock concerts vs comedy shows vs children's entertainment, etc.). It really opened up my perspective on that stuff. The Lions only have 8-9 regular season games per year. What are you doing with that space for the other 356 days of the year? 

So if we go with this thought process - how likely is it that a grass field is going to be damaged by an event like a big rock concert or monster trucks? How much easier is it to do this with a turf field? My son is really into monster trucks (he's 3), and I was watching time-lapse of an arena being set up for a Monster Jam event. They're throwing plywood over top of the surface and then bringing in truckloads of dirt.  I'm going to assume that it's easier to manage this with a turf field. 

Vegas has their grass outside of the stadium and they wheel it in for football games.  They also have turf four feet under that for UNLV to use.  Obviously that is a brand new stadium and the weather works to have grass year round and the space around the new arena to do it, but there are ways to make it happen.  

The Blue Jays have been researching it and it sounds like growing grass in a stadium can happen, but it may mess with the humidity and it is not overly mobile unless you do what the Raiders are doing and that doesnt work for us.  

[Karnage84]

1 minute ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Vegas has their grass outside of the stadium and they wheel it in for football games.  They also have turf four feet under that for UNLV to use.  Obviously that is a brand new stadium and the weather works to have grass year round and the space around the new arena to do it, but there are ways to make it happen.  

The Blue Jays have been researching it and it sounds like growing grass in a stadium can happen, but it may mess with the humidity and it is not overly mobile unless you do what the Raiders are doing and that doesnt work for us.  

Yeah - I would say that climate makes a big difference and it's probably really tough to do as a retrofit vs purpose built. I think I saw a video for one of the new stadiums in Qatar that had a really crazy grass field system. 

[diehardlionfan]

It could be done but it would be costly and require the Lions to play elsewhere for one season.