NFL Players Urge Owners to Prioritize Natural Grass Over Artificial Turf

With the World Cup final occurring on Sunday, the grass pitch will be quickly removed and replaced with plastic turf for the 20 NFL games this season, including any home playoff games for the Giants or the Jets (the latter, if they occur), NFL players launched a social‑media campaign on Friday aimed at shaming owners into installing high‑quality grass in all NFL stadiums.

(His team, the Bears, currently play on grass while planning a domed stadium; should that happen, it will be intriguing to see how they accommodate NFL games on grass.)

Approximately half of NFL teams host home games on natural grass, while the remaining half use artificial turf.

The NFLPA’s public‑relations campaign is logical. Contrary to the MLB’s clumsy, ill‑advised attempts to promote a salary cap through television ads, the NFLPA’s grassroots effort—intended as a genuine push for natural grass—makes sense because it represents the only realistic path to success.

During Thursday’s #PFTPM broadcast, a viewer asked if there will finally be a decisive showdown between owners and the NFLPA over turf versus grass in the next CBA?

The answer is no.

While 92 percent of players (as indicated by the 92 percent of the players) prefer grass, it will be another matter for that majority to actually prioritize grass over turf in the next CBA negotiations, which would require at least 50.1 percent of players to support the change.

For grass to become a bargaining issue, players would need to concede something else—primarily money. At minimum, the league would require sharing the total cost of installing and maintaining high‑quality grass in stadiums currently using turf.

This could involve substantial costs for indoor venues, such as growing grass indoors or retrofitting stadiums to accommodate a movable grass field, or installing complex systems that keep grass underground when other events are scheduled (the elaborate system). It could also entail lost revenue for stadiums unable to host other major events because the grass field cannot be removed.

The NFL would calculate a large figure encompassing the cost and lost revenue of converting every stadium to grass, forcing players to decide whether to sacrifice that amount from the salary‑cap pool or accept the status quo.

Would they sacrifice some revenue to secure grass? For the half of the league that already plays on grass, it would be easy to dismiss the idea.

Thus, they need an alternative approach. Pressuring owners to accept the expenses of converting to grass sidesteps the CBA, but it is unlikely to succeed: many owners lack shame, and a social‑media campaign alone is insufficient to sway them.

Even if grass advocacy spreads widely among football fans, what will they actually do? Will they boycott games played on artificial turf?

“Hey Frank, the Ravens and Patriots are scheduled for Sunday night.”

“Bill, where is the game?”

“Let me check— the game is in New England.”

“They’re playing on artificial turf; I’m not watching that.”

“Correction: the game is in Baltimore.”

“Alright, what time should I come over?”

Is it improper for owners to rely on misleading injury‑rate statistics and compel players to compete on a surface that reflects the forces they generate back onto their bodies? Yes.

Will a pressure campaign urging owners to choose grass actually move the needle?

Absolutely not.

This dispute was effectively settled decades ago when artificial fields were first introduced. The low‑cost, multi‑purpose green surfaces spread rapidly without objection from players. Consequently, successive CBAs have cemented owners’ freedom to choose between grass and turf as a matter of managerial discretion.

Now it’s too late to reverse the situation without players conceding at the CBA table. Until they do, they must hope that additional teams defy the NFL’s default stance and opt for grass—such as the Bills have done in their new stadium—while also hoping that other teams do not unilaterally replace grass with turf, as the Steelers might do if their new effort at grass continues to be poor.

There is no downside to the players raising awareness of this issue, but any solution will require players to sacrifice a substantial amount of money.

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