On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including Sportico‘s ongoing Turf Wars series, breaking down the economics of natural grass and artificial turf in the NFL.
The world’s richest sport league conducts much of its business in a uniform manner—teams split revenue evenly, adhere to the same hard salary cap, and sell media rights as a single entity. But the playing surfaces vary dramatically across the league. Seventeen NFL teams will play home games on turf this year, while 15 will play home games on natural grass.
The hosts talk about the money behind both. Many stadiums that have natural grass will schedule a very small number of non-NFL events during the season. Stadiums that have dozens of non-NFL events during the season are more likely to have turf. They discuss franchises on both ends of the spectrum.
They also get into more nuance about the issue. What are the different types of natural grass? How about the different types of turf? What kind of leverage do the players have in the next labor talks? Will we see NFL stadiums that utilize the pricy field removal infrastructure built by European soccer teams Tottenham and Real Madrid?
Next they talk about the U.S. Open. The tournament lost a number of high-profile stars in the early rounds—among them Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Coco Gauff—but that cleared the way for a handful of Americans to reach the quarterfinals. They include a trio with ties to billionaires—Emma Navarro’s father is billionaire Ben Navarro, who bid for the Carolina Panthers and owns the top-tier tennis tournament in Cincinnati; Jessica Pegula’s parents are the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres; and Frances Tiafoe was backed by billionaire Bill Ackman when he was a junior.
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