The World Cup kicks off next month across North America, and the Los Angeles Rams’ home stadium will be hosting games in Inglewood. SoFi Stadium is one of the premier venues in the country, so it makes sense that games will be played at Stan Kroenke’s $5.5 billion mecca.
In order for the stadium to host the World Cup, several changes needed to be made. The biggest overhaul? The playing field. All World Cup games must be played on natural grass, and SoFi Stadium – like many other venues – features a turf field.
Well, that turf has been stripped out and a grass pitch has been installed, which was no simple process. Additionally, field-level suites and seating sections had to be removed in order to meet FIFA guidelines regarding the field size.
SoFi Stadium’s official account shared an awesome video showing these major changes that were made for the World Cup, with the field installation being especially fascinating.
The installation of grass fields at NFL stadiums has been a conversation point around the league because of players’ strong preference for playing on grass instead of turf. They’ve spent years advocating for grass fields, and now stadiums are temporarily obliging just to host World Cup games.
We’ll see where it goes from here, but players can’t be happy that the visiting World Cup will get grass fields and they still have to play on turf once the big event is over.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: See the major changes SoFi Stadium had to make for the World Cup
Reporting by Cameron DaSilva, Rams Wire / Rams Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
