SportsField Management October 2026 | Page 21

By Mary Helen Sprecher

It doesn’ t take a crystal ball to see that synthetic turf will continue to be part of the sports field market. What is important to remember, however, is that the turf industry is always evolving. New trends and new developments are driven by customer preferences, new priorities, emerging sports, safety issues, manufacturing advancements, environmental concerns and, of course, budgets.

Nationwide, builders of synthetic turf fields are responding to changes in the industry and were able to shed some light on the trends that are shaping the work they do.

Photo courtesy of GRAEF

Field owners are concerned about injury prevention and keeping athletes safe, said Lee Narozanick of American Athletic Track and Turf in Vincentown, New Jersey. As such, there has been renewed interest in cushion pads and e-layers under the turf fields to help with safety and G-max testing.

Photo courtesy of Foresite Design, Inc.

Builders note that while the demand for synthetic turf has not slowed down, there are many installations in schools, community parks and sportsplexes where turf facilities exist alongside grass, with different fields satisfying the needs of different sports. In this respect, the two surfaces complement( rather than compete with) one another.

Photo courtesy of American Athletic Track and Turf

According to builders, infill remains a hot topic when fields are built or renovated.

“ Infill is still the first thing people want to talk about,” said Allen Verdin of the Motz Group LLC in Cincinnati, Ohio.“ There are more options than ever— coated sand, cork, coconut fiber, walnut shells, wood fiber and a growing list of other plant-based materials. The organic segment keeps picking up steam, and it’ s usually because of surface heat or what happens to the field at the end of its life.” Those who read the room, he added, can see the tried-and-true fields are still popular.“ Crumb rubber isn’ t going anywhere,” said Verdin.“ It’ s affordable, and coaches and players also know how it feels underfoot. When someone tells me they’ ve had a decade’ s worth of good performance from a field with crumb rubber infill, I’ m not going to try to argue them out of it.”

Narozanick cited an increased interest in coated and colored infill in an attempt to keep the turf temperatures lower; of course, synthetic fields use irrigation systems to aid with this as well.

“ There also has been a continued interest in non-infill type of fields for athletics,” said Paul Arcella of CSR Athletic Construction in Deerfield Beach, Florida.“ These fields have a higher fiber face weight and a sand infill for ballast and weight.”

However, he noted,“ More research and especially performance data are needed on these alternative types of infill and non-infill fields.”

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While multi-use fields are not new, the emergence of flag football( at the youth and college levels), as well as popularity of a number of other sports, is keeping fields busy and driving some field owners to choose synthetic turf surfaces.

“ Maximizing space and usage has been, and will continue to be, a top request,” said Chris Franks of SCG Fields, LLC in Brecksville, Ohio.“ Building fields that can host multiple sports can be a financial and functional benefit to customers. However, customers need to consider the time requirements, playing seasons and logistics of multiple sport fields to create a mutually beneficial surface.”

“ Most of our large field installations are for school fields that host multiple sports; those can satisfy the needs of school districts that have small labor forces for maintenance,” added Narozanick.

Photo courtesy of GRAEF

In 1986, Boise State University debuted a blue synthetic turf surface at Lyle Smith Field at Albertsons Stadium. The field was quickly dubbed“ Smurf Turf” by pundits, but it opened the eyes of consumers and ushered in a new era of field construction. Now, said Narozanick, it is a question that gets asked all the time.“ Custom school colors are used in the end zones as much as possible,” he said.“ Most turf installations come with logos at midfield and other locations on the field. Some fields have sponsorship logos that help pay the costs for the installation.”

“ Custom logos and designs are always a hot button with schools and municipalities,” added Arcella.

Green is still by far the most popular color and the most used, but there are installations where turf is laid to resemble mowing patterns, creating visual interest. Of course, the bottom line is still king.“ Custom colors are school-specific,” said Franks.“ And generally when they hear the price point, they are either willing to pay for it to satisfy their branding requirements or they are not.”

Photo courtesy of American Athletic

Track and Turf

One of the obstacles to turf adoption for many field owners is the fact that the field will

inevitably reach the end of its useful life.

“ For years, the fair criticism was that old fields mostly went to landfills,” said Verdin.“ That’ s changing, though not quickly enough. Some manufacturers are partnering with major chemical companies to recycle aged fields from schools and universities, with the goal of building regional recycling capacity so that turf doesn’ t have to be trucked across the country just to be processed.”

Arcella agrees.“ Bringing old fields to a landfill is not something we would agree to do; and in many cases throughout the country, bringing turf to a landfill is prohibited,” he said.“ We continue to explore other options for recycling / repurposing turf fields. We mostly repurpose fields we remove, but have also recycled a few fields as well. The option to recycle a turf field is really limited and depends on the region of the country you are working in, as to whether or not recycling makes sense.”

Photo courtesy of Byrne & Jones Sports

Construction

Overall, the industry is moving forward, and the beneficiaries of these advancements range from manufacturers to builders to owners to end users.

“ Technology is improving to where some manufacturers can tuft colors into panels, which reduces the amount of turf that would traditionally be inlaid, or cut and glued, in the field,” said Franks.“ This reduces the linear footage of glued seams in the field— those are the areas which tend to have the highest failure rate— thereby reducing required repairs and warranty maintenance. Fiber technology continues to improve, resulting in stronger, more durable and better UV-resistant products.”

Photo courtesy of Activitas Inc.

The use of turf has broadened as well, with facility-specific products showing up in other areas.

“ It’ s not just sports turf,” said Verdin.“ There are products engineered for pets, playgrounds and more. We’ re also seeing municipalities put synthetic surfaces on rooftops, around splash pads, and in community spaces where water restrictions or foot traffic make grass impractical. The industry has finally started taking its two biggest knocks— heat and end-of-life— as engineering problems instead of talking points. That’ s progress worth watching.”

Mary Helen Sprecher wrote this article on behalf of the American Sports Builders Association( ASBA). For more information visit www. sportsbuilders. org.