When 70,000 fans pack Levi’s Stadium in Seahawks Action Green and Patriots Nautical Blue on Feb. 8, there’s only one shade of green that matters for the next 60 minutes: the 80,000 square feet of turf under the players’ cleats.
This isn’t your neighborhood lawn. The Super Bowl field started its journey over a year ago on a sod farm in California’s Central Valley.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been tracking this championship-grade grass from farm to stadium floor, talking with the team at West Coast Turf, and following daily video logs from NFL Field Director Nick Pappas to uncover what it takes to build a playing surface that can handle the biggest game in sports.
The Recipe for a Super Bowl Surface
The playing surface for Super Bowl LX is a custom-grown Tifway II hybrid Bermuda overseeded with perennial ryegrass.
While most Bermudagrass varieties turn brown and go dormant through winter, Tifway II has a critical advantage: shorter winter dormancy. It stays green longer into fall and greens up earlier in spring, making it a great choice for a game played in early February.
The specs tell the rest of the Tifway II story:
- Color: Dark blue-green color that looks championship-ready on 4K broadcasts
- Texture: Medium-fine texture that provides stable footing without being too coarse
- Performance: Top-ranked overall quality in turfgrass performance studies
- Durability: Exceptional durability and recovery — it can handle 300-pound linemen colliding for 60 minutes and bounce back fast from divots and wear
This grass was bred specifically for the punishment of professional football, with the added bonus of looking gorgeous under stadium lights when most bermudagrass would still be sleeping through winter.
From Farm to Super Bowl Stadium
I reached out to Danielle Scardino from West Coast Turf, the growers responsible for this year’s stage, to get the details.
“The NFL selects their particular field out at the farm. We use whatever they decide is best,” Scardino explained. “Nick Pappas makes regular trips out to the farm to make sure he likes what he sees, and is in close contact with our farm staff.”
This marks the company’s 11th Super Bowl field, and here are the stats:
- Size: Approximately 80,000 sq. ft
- Weight: 570 rolls, weighing over 1 ton each
- Thickness: Almost 2 inches of dense root mass
- Age: Grown specifically for this game for over 18 months
- Logistics: It took 32 truckloads to haul the sod from the farm to Santa Clara
As Scardino told me, “It looks fabulous! Nick Pappas and his crew and the 49ers head groundskeeper, Matt Greiner, have done an amazing job.”
The Install: A Day-and-a-Half Sprint
According to the latest updates from Levi’s Stadium, the crew pulled off the old field and installed the new one in just less than two days.
“We’ve done most things you want to do to a field once you get it in,” Pappas said in a recent update from the field. That includes aerating, rolling in multiple directions, top dressing, and feeding the grass to help it recover from the stress of transportation.
Now that it’s on the field, whose job is it to maintain it?
“After install, the NFL has complete control over the maintenance,” Scardino clarified regarding the protocol leading up to Feb. 8. “We do not maintain it after it is harvested and installed. They have their special crews led by the NFL’s Nick Pappas, and have their own plan in place.”
The Science of Surface Testing
You might think watching grass grow is boring, but not when you have the toys the NFL uses. To ensure the footing is safe and consistent for the players, Pappas and his team have deployed a lineup of high-tech testing gear:
- The Beast: A traction testing device that drags a weighted cleated foot across the turf to measure grip.
- The Clegg Hammer (strike impact tester): Measures the firmness of the surface to prevent it from being too hard (concussion risk) or too soft (fatigue risk).
- Moisture Meters: Sensors that map the hydration levels across the entire field.
- Infrared and LED Grow Lights: With the stadium shadows creeping in by 3 p.m. this time of year, massive mobile grow light rigs are rolling across the field to simulate full sun and drive root growth.
“We’ve got the infrared heat on, getting some LED light to it… just to try and really help drive some growth and recovery,” Pappas noted. “Anytime you get a new field, it gets a little bit stressed just from that transportation.”
The Afterlife of an NFL Field
In previous years, West Coast Turf has established a wonderful tradition of donating the Super Bowl sod to local schools, parks, or recreation areas for a second life. However, the fate of this year’s turf is unique.
According to Axios, this specific field is earmarked for compost immediately following the game. With FIFA’s stringent World Cup pitch requirements coming in June, the grounds crew has a tight window to clear the deck and prepare the surface for the next global stage.
Green Means Go
For West Coast Turf, Nick Pappas, and the crew at Levi’s Stadium, this field has been under a microscope for over a year and a half.
The perfect outcome is that the 68,500 fans in the stadium and the estimated 122.7 million viewers watching around the world keep their eyes glued to the big plays made on the field without thinking about the turf beneath the players’ feet.
If the grip holds true and the turf stays firm for all four quarters, there will be two winners on the field on Super Bowl Sunday: the Seahawks or Patriots and the Tifway II hybrid turf.
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This article originally appeared on Lawnstarter.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org
