Artificial American Football Field Turf

Football has been played on soggy, muddy or rock hard natural turf fields for decades. The game was brutal and the outcome was often decided by the condition of the field. Occasionally, the football field turf conditions would be optimum and then the game was a joy. However, more often than not the football field turf was either over used and beat up, or just not up to par.

The conditions of the field weren't helped by the fact that the football field turf natural pitches were often used for many different sports as well as practices. This super abundance of play beat up the fields badly and created terrible and unsafe playing conditions. This problem continued until the 1960's when the first synthetic football field turf was created. It was to be called Astroturf because it was used in the first indoor domed field in Houston, Tx. This synthetic football turf would revolutionize the industry and within a few years, hundreds and then thousands of football field turf fields would be converted to this unique product.

The Astroturf phenomena was to continue for nearly 30 years and soon every major college and high school in the country had the product. Unfortunately, there was a dark side to Astroturf and it was the cause of scores of injuries of all kinds. A new injury called turf toe was accredited to Astroturf. But, that wasn't all. Because the seams were sewn and therefore left a ridge, several athletes injured their knees and ankles because of the seams. Many of these football field turf related injuries were career ending and left athletes young and old crippled for life.

Additionally, the Astroturf product was extremely abrasive because of its nylon knitted fiber make up, besides being very hard as it was usually installed over an asphalt base. This football field turf product was hardly an answer or replacement for the old natural turf fields. Even the play of the ball was different, especially when it was wet. The surface was extremely slippery and not even close to real football field turf playing conditions. By the time the 1990's came around, Astroturf had such a negative connotation that nearly all schools and colleges were changing their fields back to natural turf. Even the pros were going back to natural. There were just too many injuries. In the era of very expensive players and football as big business, it just wasn't acceptable to have so many players get hurt that badly due to the turf.

Even though the conversions and maintenance were very expensive, schools had no choice. They all had to bite the bullet and go backward, because although natural football field turf had many negatives, the positives still outweighed the benefits of synthetic football field turf.

Just when things were at their lowest and Astroturf had been equated with danger and poor play, a new turf was introduced to the market. It was completely different. This product was made of a soft polyethylene fiber rather than a coarse nylon. It also had an all rubber infill unlike the no infill Astroturf system. The football field turf system drained through rather than over the top and didn't need a large crown like Astroturf. Additionally, the G-Max or shock attenuation was almost exactly like natural turf in pristine condition rather than a rock hard surface like Astroturf.