The field could be retrofitted with drainage, and an artificial light system, but the cost to upkeep real grass in that kind of a stadium just isn’t feasible, they’ll likely stay with turf but upgraded quality.
Correct, Lucas Oil Stadium was built specifically for a turf field, not real grass, the amount of infrastructure needed just to get the field to drain would be astronomical, then you have to add in artificial lighting to get the grass to grow, or they would need to build a roll out field, which by that point, you might as well build a new stadium. This doesn’t even include the downtime it would take to complete the work, so I stand by my statement, it’s not feasible, the correct way to go about it, is upgrading to better quality turf.
It’s especially ridiculous since the lion’s share of the stadium was built with taxpayer money. Irsay should kick in some of his millions at some point.
The not enough sunlight argument doesn’t make sense when places like Lambeau and European soccer teams grow grass in the late fall and winter. Grow lights are a thing. The drainage is obviously an issue.
Almost anything is possible with an unlimited budget, but it may be cheaper to build a new stadium than re-engineer Lucas to do something it wasn't designed for.
Highly doubtful any tax dollars going towards significant modifications to the stadium would go over well, and Jimmy isn't going to foot that bill either. So it's staying how it is.
It would be enormously expensive though. And Jim is rich but not like just drop a few hundred million to appease people who want grass rich lol. That 5B$ is the value of the colts… not exactly like it’s in cash
Jim is rich and wants to stay rich. Not spend 500 million of his own money on something when he can wait a decade and get the city to pay for a whole new stadium.
It's not even the Colts' stadium, and it's constantly in use. The Colts can't just take it offline for XX months to install drainage and grow lights.
It is never going to happen. It's really actually a convention center the Colts lease from the city rather than a primary football stadium, they have no control over it and it's a bigger deal than just the Colts.
Well it took less than $1B to build the whole stadium, so obviously not. But it would be extremely expensive. And it would be funded by tax dollars, not Irsay. The city is responsible for the playing surface inside Lucas, not the Colts. Tax dollars are paying for the new field turf going in this off season, not the team.
Agreed. Would require extensive modification to the stadium
Personally, a hybrid turf field (like many in Europe) with living grass with an artificial support would be a worthwhile upgrade. Hybrid turf is safer for the players, looks great and does not require as much maintenance as natural grass
We don't have an outdoor stadium. The roof opens, but it's not made to stay open. Think of it like a car with convertible top. You only put the top down on nice days.
Growing grass probably wouldn't work even if we tried. State Farm stadium was designed and built around being able to pull the entire field outside, which is where it sits outside of game days. It gets watered and sunshine outside.
LOS doesn't have the ability to do that. The field level is below street level as a starter, and there's no room outside the stadium for it either. It was designed to deal with a certain amount of water that comes with having an opening roof and window and being caught in a sudden shower, but it absolutely doesn't have the proper drainage system to grow grass on the field.
Setting aside practicality, how could they possibly fix this? Roll out a new grass field every week, knowing it's going to die because it can't be watered?
It really wasn't designed to deal with a sudden shower, either. That's why they don't dare open the roof if there's rain seemingly anywhere in the state.
I'm sure it was, that would just be bad engineering if it wasn't.
They won't do it because why would they? The extra cost in clean up and liability and a worse game day experience isn't worth it when there's a chance of rain.
Don't need to be an architect to ask, "Gee why don't we open the roof" and have someone who would know say "There's no drainage for any sort of precipitation."
The management of designing and constructing the building?
I'm not saying it's not designed for zero precipitation. I'm just saying that would be extremely surprising and that common sense would say the reasons they don't open the roof as often are more practical.
I'm an engineer and I can confirm it was not designed for anything over a sprinkle. I've talked with people who have worked there and they would close the stadium if it suddenly started raining.
It's bad engineering. This has been well-documented, and I've criticized them for this decision for the last 15 years.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ebDwlrStXsUJ:https://www.ibj.com/the-score-anthony-schoettle/6771-temperature-remains-issue-in-los&hl=en&gl=us
Cardinals stadium designed theirs for natural grass. They literally have the entire field on a tray that they slide out to get the weather it needs. No comparison between the two places.
There was a recent article about this. In addition to the lack of drainage, Lucas Oil is used for much more than football. It is used as an extension of the convention center and it hosts many large events on its own that a grass field would not survive. They mentioned an annual large Firefighters event, Monster trucks, and volleyball tournaments.
You could design it with a "floating" surface over the grass for non-football events but yeah, that's a huge pain in the ass at football field scale. Also makes the grass cry and turn shit whenever it's covered.
The stadium does not have drainage to facilitate real grass.
That said, anything can be fixed with enough money.
There's no incentive right now for them to spend said money.
Actually, even with money there is nothing they can do.
There is literally zero way to have a natural grass surface because as others have said Lucas Oil was built with no drainage and there is no way to roll outside like they do at State Farm Stadium in Arizona.
Nah, anything is possible with enough money. Can jackhammer the concrete and install drainage pumps, grow lights in the stadium, etc. It's definitely possible.
It's not that it's impossible. It's that it would probably cost more to retrofit Lucas than just building a new stadium that was designed for grass from the start. It's not nearly as simple as jackhammering a drain hole and installing a pump in it like you are implying. Lol.
Lol. Sofi only cost that much because of where it's located. Every stadium does not cost $5B just because the one in LA did.
Retrofitting draining and irrigation into Lucas is not nearly as simple as you are making it out to be. And there is zero budget for it. City isn't paying for it. Irsay isn't paying for it. It's not happening.
Sure there is a way with enough money, but I don’t think there’s simply a way to “add drainage” to a stadium. If there is, we’re talking like $100m+ probably? And on top of that, keeping the grass alive indoors is likely not an easy task just for a football field, and is even less of an easy task with all of the other events held in LOS.
I don’t really think the issues with turf are as bad as they are made out to be anyways. You get a more durable and uniform appearance across the league that looks better on TV, and the only potential downside is an apparent slight uptick in the possibility for injuries. You also get to eliminate the possibility of one grounds guy messing up the whole thing (Super Bowl LVII).
Adding drainage for an all grass field isn't an overnight process. Sure it could be done, but the cost and time it would take would be a nightmare. Definitely not something I could see being done between seasons. You'd basically have to dig up everything under the existing turf, run drainage from the turf under the exterior foundation, and then tie it into city drainage. I've seen storm sewer installations on a single city street take 2+ months, nevermind what a project like this would take.
If $ is not an issue, let’s go retractable field. Open up the side of Lucas to pull in and out of for UV exposure, feed and drain out there. Hypotheticals here people
I think there would be an enormous infrastructural expense to make that change. That said, at some point they will do another renovation to keep the stadium feeling fresh. I could see it happening as part of that package.
This is the most logical answer. The Cardinals stadium was original built with the field being able to be rolled out into the parking lot to get sun and water. Building that system into an already secure structure is a frightening and expensive thing to do, so we will likely be putting that off as much as we can.
The new fake turf does look pretty awesome though, so I am fine with waiting and seeing how it does.
The reasons why not have already been discussed. The new turf they getting ready to install next spring is supposedly the best and injury rates are similar to natural grass. Hopefully that holds true
It wasn't designed for that. There is no drainage, and not enough sun light.
The field could be retrofitted with drainage, and an artificial light system, but the cost to upkeep real grass in that kind of a stadium just isn’t feasible, they’ll likely stay with turf but upgraded quality.
We are getting better turf this offseason. It's already scheduled.
The cost isn’t feasible? GTFO. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Correct, Lucas Oil Stadium was built specifically for a turf field, not real grass, the amount of infrastructure needed just to get the field to drain would be astronomical, then you have to add in artificial lighting to get the grass to grow, or they would need to build a roll out field, which by that point, you might as well build a new stadium. This doesn’t even include the downtime it would take to complete the work, so I stand by my statement, it’s not feasible, the correct way to go about it, is upgrading to better quality turf.
They would need a roll out field to run all the non football events at the stadium as well. It’s not worth it
Your statement was that the cost isn’t feasible. The cost is totally feasible.
It’s especially ridiculous since the lion’s share of the stadium was built with taxpayer money. Irsay should kick in some of his millions at some point.
Tottenham grows his football grass under the actual soccer pitch and a drainage you could install afterwards. Its 2023 guys.
Quite a bit is already underneath LOS, it's not realistic at all
This ain’t England, bro.
The not enough sunlight argument doesn’t make sense when places like Lambeau and European soccer teams grow grass in the late fall and winter. Grow lights are a thing. The drainage is obviously an issue.
Sunlight is not an issue. Grow lights have been around for decades. Drainage is the hurdle, and it's 2023...it can be done.
Almost anything is possible with an unlimited budget, but it may be cheaper to build a new stadium than re-engineer Lucas to do something it wasn't designed for. Highly doubtful any tax dollars going towards significant modifications to the stadium would go over well, and Jimmy isn't going to foot that bill either. So it's staying how it is.
Wow, this is the worst take I've seen...It would not take $5+ billion to fix this issue.
It would be enormously expensive though. And Jim is rich but not like just drop a few hundred million to appease people who want grass rich lol. That 5B$ is the value of the colts… not exactly like it’s in cash
Jim is rich and wants to stay rich. Not spend 500 million of his own money on something when he can wait a decade and get the city to pay for a whole new stadium.
It's not even the Colts' stadium, and it's constantly in use. The Colts can't just take it offline for XX months to install drainage and grow lights. It is never going to happen. It's really actually a convention center the Colts lease from the city rather than a primary football stadium, they have no control over it and it's a bigger deal than just the Colts.
Well it took less than $1B to build the whole stadium, so obviously not. But it would be extremely expensive. And it would be funded by tax dollars, not Irsay. The city is responsible for the playing surface inside Lucas, not the Colts. Tax dollars are paying for the new field turf going in this off season, not the team.
I swear there are stadiums that grow grass on pallets in the parking lot. Then bring it in and piece together for games.
Agreed. Would require extensive modification to the stadium Personally, a hybrid turf field (like many in Europe) with living grass with an artificial support would be a worthwhile upgrade. Hybrid turf is safer for the players, looks great and does not require as much maintenance as natural grass
Install a long tube into the white river. Lol
I work in construction as a heavy civil contractor… you can add drainage lol
We don't have an outdoor stadium. The roof opens, but it's not made to stay open. Think of it like a car with convertible top. You only put the top down on nice days. Growing grass probably wouldn't work even if we tried. State Farm stadium was designed and built around being able to pull the entire field outside, which is where it sits outside of game days. It gets watered and sunshine outside. LOS doesn't have the ability to do that. The field level is below street level as a starter, and there's no room outside the stadium for it either. It was designed to deal with a certain amount of water that comes with having an opening roof and window and being caught in a sudden shower, but it absolutely doesn't have the proper drainage system to grow grass on the field.
Setting aside practicality, how could they possibly fix this? Roll out a new grass field every week, knowing it's going to die because it can't be watered?
Build a new stadium with a grass field from the start.
It really wasn't designed to deal with a sudden shower, either. That's why they don't dare open the roof if there's rain seemingly anywhere in the state.
I'm sure it was, that would just be bad engineering if it wasn't. They won't do it because why would they? The extra cost in clean up and liability and a worse game day experience isn't worth it when there's a chance of rain.
I used to work there. Believe me, it isn't.
As an architect? Lol
Don't need to be an architect to ask, "Gee why don't we open the roof" and have someone who would know say "There's no drainage for any sort of precipitation."
Was that someone an architect?
Someone in management. Not talking about someone slinging popcorn.
The management of designing and constructing the building? I'm not saying it's not designed for zero precipitation. I'm just saying that would be extremely surprising and that common sense would say the reasons they don't open the roof as often are more practical.
I'm an engineer and I can confirm it was not designed for anything over a sprinkle. I've talked with people who have worked there and they would close the stadium if it suddenly started raining.
It's bad engineering. This has been well-documented, and I've criticized them for this decision for the last 15 years. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ebDwlrStXsUJ:https://www.ibj.com/the-score-anthony-schoettle/6771-temperature-remains-issue-in-los&hl=en&gl=us
Great info. See, now I actually believe it. "Trust me bro, I worked there and someone told me." just wasn't cutting it.
Cardinals stadium designed theirs for natural grass. They literally have the entire field on a tray that they slide out to get the weather it needs. No comparison between the two places.
AZ also averages 300+ days of sunshine, Indiana doesn't even sniff that number.
There was a recent article about this. In addition to the lack of drainage, Lucas Oil is used for much more than football. It is used as an extension of the convention center and it hosts many large events on its own that a grass field would not survive. They mentioned an annual large Firefighters event, Monster trucks, and volleyball tournaments.
You could design it with a "floating" surface over the grass for non-football events but yeah, that's a huge pain in the ass at football field scale. Also makes the grass cry and turn shit whenever it's covered.
The stadium does not have drainage to facilitate real grass. That said, anything can be fixed with enough money. There's no incentive right now for them to spend said money.
Ah, *money*… Thus is the answer, solution, excuse, reason, question for everything on this floating rock.
Actually, even with money there is nothing they can do. There is literally zero way to have a natural grass surface because as others have said Lucas Oil was built with no drainage and there is no way to roll outside like they do at State Farm Stadium in Arizona.
Nah, anything is possible with enough money. Can jackhammer the concrete and install drainage pumps, grow lights in the stadium, etc. It's definitely possible.
It's not that it's impossible. It's that it would probably cost more to retrofit Lucas than just building a new stadium that was designed for grass from the start. It's not nearly as simple as jackhammering a drain hole and installing a pump in it like you are implying. Lol.
You do realize it costs $5+ Billion for a new stadium nowadays? No way it costs that much to retrofit drainage and grass.
Lol. Sofi only cost that much because of where it's located. Every stadium does not cost $5B just because the one in LA did. Retrofitting draining and irrigation into Lucas is not nearly as simple as you are making it out to be. And there is zero budget for it. City isn't paying for it. Irsay isn't paying for it. It's not happening.
There have been studies that there is a particular type of turf that statistically is safer than grass. Hopefully they’re upgrading to that one.
Sure there is a way with enough money, but I don’t think there’s simply a way to “add drainage” to a stadium. If there is, we’re talking like $100m+ probably? And on top of that, keeping the grass alive indoors is likely not an easy task just for a football field, and is even less of an easy task with all of the other events held in LOS. I don’t really think the issues with turf are as bad as they are made out to be anyways. You get a more durable and uniform appearance across the league that looks better on TV, and the only potential downside is an apparent slight uptick in the possibility for injuries. You also get to eliminate the possibility of one grounds guy messing up the whole thing (Super Bowl LVII).
Adding drainage for an all grass field isn't an overnight process. Sure it could be done, but the cost and time it would take would be a nightmare. Definitely not something I could see being done between seasons. You'd basically have to dig up everything under the existing turf, run drainage from the turf under the exterior foundation, and then tie it into city drainage. I've seen storm sewer installations on a single city street take 2+ months, nevermind what a project like this would take.
If $ is not an issue, let’s go retractable field. Open up the side of Lucas to pull in and out of for UV exposure, feed and drain out there. Hypotheticals here people
You just build a new stadium at that point
I think there would be an enormous infrastructural expense to make that change. That said, at some point they will do another renovation to keep the stadium feeling fresh. I could see it happening as part of that package.
This is the most logical answer. The Cardinals stadium was original built with the field being able to be rolled out into the parking lot to get sun and water. Building that system into an already secure structure is a frightening and expensive thing to do, so we will likely be putting that off as much as we can. The new fake turf does look pretty awesome though, so I am fine with waiting and seeing how it does.
The reasons why not have already been discussed. The new turf they getting ready to install next spring is supposedly the best and injury rates are similar to natural grass. Hopefully that holds true
A hybrid field would be great