A unique feat of engineering that makes football in the desert comfortable for players and fans alike will be on full display at Super Bowl 57 in Glendale, Arizona. With its rollout natural grass field and retractable roof, State Farm Stadium was the first of its kind when it opened in 2006.
It has been eight years since the NFL brought the Super Bowl to the Arizona Cardinals' home stadium. In its 17-year history, the stadium has hosted two Super Bowls, the annual Fiesta Bowl, the 2017 NCAA Final Four basketball championship and many concerts and events.
The stadium hosts Super Bowl 57 on Feb. 12, when the Kansas City Chiefs face the Philadelphia Eagles.
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New York architect Peter Eisenman designed the stadium in partnership with HOK Sports and Hunt Construction Group. The exterior design is said to evoke two of Arizona's most common features: barrel cactuses and a coiled snake. The stadium cost $455 million ($660.5 million in 2023 dollars) and seats 63,400 (expandable to 73,000) spectators.
Rollout grass playing field
When the stadium opened, the retractable field was the first of its kind in North America. There are still fewer than a dozen such fields worldwide and only two in the United States. Allegiant Field in Las Vegas, another stadium in a desert and home to the Raiders, is the other one.
The rollout natural grass field allows the stadium to serve as a multipurpose venue without the worry of damaging the field. When the field is moved outside on a large tray, 160,000 square feet of event floor space can be used for other large, non-football-related attractions.
For the Super Bowl, organizers are replacing the sod with an entirely new field – a hybrid of Bermuda grass and perennial rye grass – that began growing more than a year ago. Each roll of sod weighs 1,500 to 1,600 pounds. In all, the field tray will hold about 1 million pounds of new natural grass.
Weighing nearly 19 million pounds, the field tray is operated by a control box at the north end of the tray. An operator pushes a button every 30 seconds to keep the field moving. It takes 60 to 65 minutes to move the field in and out of stadium (15 feet a minute).
This cross-section below shows the complex pieces of the tray required to help the turf get the water, nutrients and drainage it needs to stay healthy.
Retractable roof
Slightly less unique – but still impressive on an engineering scale – is the stadium's retractable roof. Two panels made of translucent Birdair fabric move along steel rail at an incline, powered by a 480-horsepower motor.
State Farm Stadium's retractable roof is one of five in the NFL.
SOURCES State Farm Stadium; Arizona Cardinals; USA TODAY file graphics; Getty Images; Google Earth