This is the third installment of Sportico’s Turf Wars series, which examines the rationale behind choosing natural or artificial turf for an NFL facility.
It can be difficult to persuade NFL owners to use fresh grass-field technology. Simply ask Mark Trübenbacher, CEO and co-owner of Netherlands-based PlayGreen, a producer of grow lights and other vegetation software. ” The NFL, whether because the spread ]of environments ] is so big, because the business cases are so different or ownership are so different, it’s kind of’ prove it’ to one]team ] after the other”, Trübenbacher said on a video call from Yellowstone National Park. He was there to go big bear hunting, which is obviously a form of entertainment for potential NFL clients.

The professional is aware of the necessary “prove it” criteria. He traveled to Denver in person in 2019 to beg the Broncos to purchase one little light rig that he believed would aid the team in resolving a dangerous Empower Field at Mile High, which has a grass field.
” Just get it”, Trübenbacher recalls telling the team. ” Only get it and try it on your southern end, where they had the biggest issue,” the author says.
The angle succeeded. They are now purchasing more and more of our systems, he said, “because they can see how their playing area can be improved.”
Despite the debate over playing surfaces in the NFL, lawn and turf have remained remarkably firm. Thirty years ago, 15 of the team’s then-30 team played on synthetic turf. Currently, 17 of the 32 venues play on ground. As both artificial turf and natural-grass technology advances and new arenas with vastly different goals are being constructed, the business battle over those areas is continually evolving.
It makes for a special sales environment for manufacturers. According to Trübenbacher, there is no need to apologise to NFL owners like there is for every other sporting club PlayGreen has dealt with. When proprietors were considering using synthetic surfaces as a solution to wet charges areas, Trübenbacher’s business convinced nearly the entire English soccer program to embrace lawn in one fell swoop two decades ago.
The business got its start in the 1990s when a French scholar took it upon himself to discover how to make foliage more adaptable in sport’s high-traffic, six-yard field. He had developed solid enough for Premier League owners to hop on the lights systems, illness management, and data analysis in 2008 to be able to trust.
” The NFL is quite anxious compared to the Premier League”, Trübenbacher said. ” We showcased Arsenal, and nobody said,’ Wow, that’s a major effect.’ And it was purchased by everyone.
But the high-touch sales work in the NFL pays out. In addition to the Broncos, PlayGreen then counts four other NFL team as users of one or both of its groups, ALVA Technology and Stadium Grow Lighting, including the Eagles, Packers and, as of last year, the 49ers.
It’s also a decent-sized business: George Pyne’s Bruin Capital bought a majority of PlayGreen from Trübenbacher’s family earlier this year in a deal valuing the business between$ 100 and$ 200 million. More athletics teams will likely switch to lawn and use PlayGreen’s sports-specific technology to develop and keep it, according to the expense.
While there are plenty of grass and related companies—such as the publicly traded Scotts Miracle-Gro and John Deere—they do n’t discuss sports needs because their core markets, residential yard and commercial farming, are so much larger. Also, the world of artificial carpet is so great that a number of manufacturers, including flooring large Mohawk Industries, create fake grass for residential and commercial environments but no sports.
On the lawn area, Sport Group and Tarkett Group, both of which provide top-notch sports facilities, can be broken down to three. Each of the carpet manufacturers personal several models, but are greatest known for AstroTurf, a part of Sport Group, and FieldTurf, owned by Tarkett.
” Synthetic carpet is growing significantly”, Ryan Baker, a companion at KPS Capital Partners, said on a telephone call. Private equity firm KPS, based in New York, purchased Sport Group in April for an unknown amount. ” It really is, in our heads, the technology head in a lot of its products, certain natural products. It offers 100 % carbon-neutral ground, biobased unnatural turf—polyethylene made from sugar or soy. There is a lot of potential for commercial growth and operational improvement because it is a business leader in its field.
KPS’s CEO, Mark Baker, says his company is excited about the potential for KPS to enhance Sport Group’s activities as well as the development of the artificial turf business. KPS’s investment strategy is to purchase businesses that produce goods, enhance the company by enhancing processes and developing better strategy for get-to-market. According to a Forbes article, KPS is best known in sports for purchasing the TaylorMade golf course in 2017 for$ 380 million and selling it for$ 1.7 billion four years later. The transformation turned into a$ 200 million annual profit, according to a Forbes article.
Making synthetic turf appears to have a far larger dollar market than grass, at least in the eyes of consumers. Sport Group should generate €828 million, or about$ 918 million, in 2024 sales, up 5 % from last year according to its former owner. The company does n’t have any current NFL stadiums, but has numerous other pro football and college football stadiums in its portfolio, including the University of Missouri’s Faurot Field and Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., site of the 2025 NFL Pro Bowl Games. The company also makes other playing areas, such as running lines and volleyball courts, including the people at the Billie Jean King U. S. Open facilities in Flushing, N. Y.
Pro stadiums, including NFL fields, are “important because obviously people see them,” Baker said in artificial grass. ” But from an actual contribution to]Sport Group’s ]$ 800 million revenue business, the bigger story is going to be in high schools ]and ] colleges”.
AstroTurf is favored for its lower maintenance costs, almost continuous field availability, and the claim that artificial turf may be safer for players than poorly maintained grass fields. ” An NFL team is going to spend$ 2 to$ 3 million a year maintaining a perfect grass field, but most fields are n’t ]within ] the perfect NFL stadium”, Baker said.
Even then, the executive is n’t necessarily ceding the NFL or college to his grass competitors: AstroTurf does n’t need water, while a grass field can require thousands of gallons of water a day, he says. The use of artificial turf may prove to be the environmentally responsible choice for stadiums in water-stressed areas.
Sport Group’s main competitor, Tarkett, declined to comment for this article. The company is publicly traded in France and discloses it made €1.03 billion from sports last year, or$ 1.13 billion. That’s up sharply from the prior year’s €870.3 million, which was driven by North American demand. Over the long term Tarkett’s sports-specific sales have tripled the past 10 years. Its FieldTurf arm lists seven NFL stadiums as installations: MetLife, Ford Field, Gillette, Mercedes-Benz, Lumen Field, Paycor and Bank of America Stadium.
PlayGreen’s Trübenbacher believes grass is becoming more popular for top-level leagues like the NFL, despite much larger rivals who have their own product advantages to pitch teams. ” We see a market for artificial turf, but it is not professional sports”, the German-born CEO said. You’re putting your best asset on the field, and if it gets injured, you’ll have that main asset on the bench for a few weeks.
What percentage of PlayGreen’s professional sports market is there? Trübenbacher says there are probably 2, 500 facilities worldwide including U. S. college stadiums. Domes that receive no natural light are the only ones that PlayGreen has worked with today.
Getting a perfect grass playing field is n’t cheap, however. Real Madrid probably has the most expensive field in sports, having paid about$ 140 million for a grass field that grows and maintains the pitch using PlayGreen Technology. According to Trauberbacher, the notion of artificial turf is no longer relevant if a stadium wants to do more than just play host to games. PlayGreen claims that he has billions of data points based on everything from altitude to moisture to event load using a database built over the past 20 years.
The company uses its data to create digital recreations of facilities. A digital twin is a computer model so sophisticated it is highly accurate about future events—GE uses it to predict when locomotives, jet engines and power plant turbines will need maintenance, for instance. PlayGreen can predict how a field will react to a calendar of concerts and games, and make adjustments to the field maintenance schedule to ensure the grass stays green, according to an NFL owner.
The real challenge is not maintaining the grass during a full calendar of events; rather, it must be persuaded by the owners.
” The biggest challenge is that there’s a lot of missing knowledge, so people make decisions based on a technology expectation from five or 10 years ago”, Trübenbacher said. Owners of NFL teams building new stadiums [ I’ve had discussions with them in the past weeks] and they seemed to need artificial because they wanted to hold events. They’re just not informed well”.
He praises owners for taking into account field options, even when it means weighing up equipment and expertise that will increase their operating costs. Ultimately,” Ownership are n’t interested in pH values and irrigation and all those kind of things: They want to know’ Is my field a three or a nine?’ That’s exactly the transition we’re doing for them”.