If the field is removeable then why don't they have several fields. Replace the field with a new one for each game. Let the field taken out recover in sunlight and get used again in a few weeks. Remember that the NFL had its own turf brought in for the Super Bowl. The turf was grown on a grass farm in Casa Grande, AZ and trucked in just for the Super Bowl.
I like Reliant Stadium but why couldn't we have just built a real open air stadium? They put real grass in it because they wanted a "real football" experience but then they put a roof on it in case it rains? You can't have it both ways. I vote for field turf. It looks like real grass but it's much easier to take care of. Best of both worlds. Plus, the players love it.
Yeah, when the roof is open at Minute Maid, it looks almost identical to an open air baseball field. Quite well designed in that regard. Reliant just looks like a stadium with a hole in the roof when they retract it.
I hate artificial turf with the heat of a nova. And I hate domes. Football should always be played outside. I'm sorry to hear that Reliant's field looks that bad in person. Maybe someday I'll be able to see it for myself.
The BIGGEST problem with the turf is that whoever configured the stadium did not accurately calculate the geometry of the stadium in correlation with the sun...MMP did it perfectly and thus it works...I hear they are waiting for the next revolution of field turf so that can be implemented but the other problem is the rodeo....They have already said they will have an extra field ready and will then have 2 and 1/2 fields ready...They also are waiting for the "Field Farm" that is supposed to be built near the stadium to bring grass in...We will all see...
Architect: "Mr. McNair, we did not place the stadium in the proper line of sight with the sun". Mr. McNair: "How do we fix it?" Architect: "We'll have 3 1/2 weeks of new grass for you" If that is the case, a new fool is born everyday. Somehow I find the stadium placement hard to believe, but who knows.
stadium placement has everything to do with sunlight in direct correlation to the field..I believe Steve Patterson was the man in place while this error occured
I stand corrected on the turf. Two points for the discussion. The stands at Reliant are much taller than Minute Made. This makes a much steeper angle for the Sun to go down into , like lighting up the bottom of a hole. Minute made is not as deep and also has no stands on the west side allowing the afternoon sun to penetrate. Also baseball for the most part is played in the summer when the sun angle is high and Football is played in the winter when the sun angle is low. Here in Houston our summer solstice sun angle is 83.5* and the winter low is 36.5*. When the sun is that low on the horizon it is even less likely to go down the hole to reach the grass. Also in winter the duration of daylight is shorter in the summer we get about 14 hours of daylight and in winter we only get about 10 hours. I doubt it ever gets cool enough in Reliant to put the grass into dormancy but Bermuda hybrids do like heat. Back when Reliant was new there was a big article in the Chronicle about the grass, I remember thay said it would take too long to move the entire field of trays in and out for every game and the optimum was to have some growth covering the edges of the trays so the field looked to be unsegmented.
