Why the Raiders chose grass

Here's what I found so far:

With the Raiders having always played home games on natural turf, the team has chosen to keep with this tradition despite moving to an enclosed stadium in the middle of the desert. To help the natural grass grow, the venue has a transparent ETFE roof, as well as a sliding field tray where the turf can be irrigated and benefit from some time in the sun.

The tray on which the grass sits rolls under the stadium and up into place for Raiders and UNLV football games. It can’t stay inside the stadium because the dome is designed to block out much of the sun’s rays which the grass needs to grow.

It was important to the Raiders to play on natural grass, but playing in Las Vegas would make game days pretty sweltering a good portion of the year. This setup offers the best of both worlds.



By the way. The Raiders DO have an artificial turf as well. I found this in a June 2020 article:

An artificial turf field with the Raiders’ iconic pirate shield logo could be seen inside the $2 billion stadium, marking the first time the team’s logo was laid on the facility’s floor.

The artificial turf won’t be used during Raiders game days. It will serve as a cosmetic feature when the team provides tours of the stadium.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2020 04:49PM by MamaRAMa.