The 100 Yard Deception: How FieldTurf Put Profits Over Taxpayers

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Great investigative piece that exposes the FieldTurf people as frauds. Your FCS program may have been one of the victims.

http://fieldturf.nj.com/

[DFW HOYA]

Part of the selling points of FieldTurf is its usable life--10 years. However, this assumes limited use of the fields.

Ten years might make sense at a place like Oklahoma, where there are six or seven games a year and the rest of the field sits quiet the rest of the year--practices are on practice fields and there are no other sports using the space.

Ten years does not work at high schools and certainly not realistic at Georgetown, which literally uses its field 18 hours a day, every day, across intercollegiate team games, practice, and intramurals. But with that level of use, natural turf won't last, either.

And for those wondering, Astroturf is still in business but was sold this year to a German company and has had its own problems with priduct safety.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/jon-pritchetts-dream-of-reviving.html

[Go Green]

Great investigative piece that exposes the FieldTurf people as frauds. Your FCS program may have been one of the victims.

http://fieldturf.nj.com/

Class action lawsuits been filed yet?

[Bogus Megapardus]

LFN just wishes Goodman was something other than an active-grazing cow pasture. Did that hit piece originally accompany a "no fees unless we recover" advertisement for a litigation-hungry plaintiffs' lawyer?

Memo to taxpayers everywhere: if you don't want artificial turf, don't buy it. Invest instead in some better quality grounds keeping.

[Bogus Megapardus]

But with that level of use, natural turf won't last, either.

Why not do what the Russians do - let every pitch go to hardscrabble. When somebody important shows up, just paint it green.

[Tribe4SF]

Great investigative piece that exposes the FieldTurf people as frauds. Your FCS program may have been one of the victims.

http://fieldturf.nj.com/

Our FCS program got ten good years out of our original FieldTurf. Now we have the newest FieldTurf Revolution360.

[RoyHobbs101]

Most high schools I'm my area (NC), and their are about a dozen, are finding that the turf is really only lasting about 6-7 years and was sold to the public as a 10-12 year surface.

[MacThor]

Our FCS program got ten good years out of our original FieldTurf. Now we have the newest FieldTurf Revolution360.

And it took out our QB's knee all on its own. ;)

[PAllen]

Most high schools I'm my area (NC), and their are about a dozen, are finding that the turf is really only lasting about 6-7 years and was sold to the public as a 10-12 year surface.

A few of the elite private schools in Baltimore were the first High Schools in the country to get the new generation of artificial fields. The first few were put in for free as demo fields for other potential customers to come and look at. All but the Astroplay surface at Gilman had to be replaced in about 5 years. By that time, new turf fields had been sold to almost all of the private schools in the area as well as the Ravens and a few publics. The privates were smart enough to get the 10 year life garunteed in the contract, so when those fields wore out in 5-7 years, FieldTurf and Astro had to come in and replace them at no cost to the school. The Ravens, including the public school fields they paid to upgrade, were not as smart and got stuck with premature replacement bills.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

You'd think exposure to SUNLIGHT would be the very first things FieldTurf tested, but apparently the finances of the customers and the safety of the participants were not at all the top priotity there.