New field turf installed at MetLife Stadium

Mar 30, 2023 - 6:41 PM

The New York Giants — and Jets — will now be playing on a new surface after years of complaints.

Jordan Ranaan of ESPN is reporting that a new FieldTurf playing surface was installed at MetLife Stadium on Thursday.

MetLife Stadium previously used UBU Sports Turf, but it will be replaced with the FieldTurf CORE system.

Per Ranaan, the new surface is the first multi-layer dual polymer monofilament fiber, and is purported to have a “lower incidence of total injuries”.

Rob VanDeVeen, the president and CEO of MetLife Stadium said, “The research that FieldTurf has put into the heavyweight infill design for this new field system will equip MetLife Stadium with one of the premier surfaces in the league.”

Interestingly, the turf previously used at MetLife Stadium had a lower overall rate of injuries (both total and lower body) than the FieldTurf commonly used around the NFL, per FootballOutsiders.

Of course, the FieldTurf CORE system is apparently a new product, so we’ll just have to see if the new technology is noticeably better.

The dream is still to get natural grass in MetLife Stadium, which John Mara acknowledges but the weather in the northeast during the NFL season and the fact that MetLife sees two slates of home games makes that tricky.

Mara said to the New York Post, “I foresee a day, my hope is we can get to a day at some point in the future when we can have a grass field that we’re able to maintain with two different teams and all the other events we have. I think we can get there at some point, Maybe it’s a hybrid product or something.”

For now, the Giants and Jets (and the teams they host) will have to make due with a synthetic field. Hopefully this one will serve better than the previous playing field.