SUPER BOWL LVII
How much does the Super Bowl LVII grass cost?
This year’s grass has been homegrown from a local farm near the stadium in a process that took two years.
When talking about the Super Bowl, everyone mentions the ring, the stadium, the players, and the city, but we seldom mention the grass. Such an important part of the spectacle that the Super Bowl is, yet it is neglectfully mentioned when talking about the game.
The process of getting the grass up to speed has been the job of 94-year-old George Toma, better known inside the organization as the Sultan Sod or the Sod God. But perhaps his most liked nickname is the one given to him by a senior NFL official as The Sodfather.
George claimed that this year’s Super Bowl grass is the second-best he’s ever seen at a press conference he gave earlier this week.
“The best one? That was between the Bears and the Colts, it rained the whole day. And there wasn’t a divot taken out of that field. This one right here, it was grown here locally by West Coast Turf. And I believe this is the second best grass we’ve had.”
How much did the Super Bowl grass cost, and how long did it take to grow?
The sod, a Tahoma Hybrid Bermuda overseeded with rye, was laid around two weeks ago. The grass is rolled in and out of the stadium daily by a mechanized platform.
At 6 a.m., the floor is rolled outside into the desert air, and at night, it is rolled back inside to be protected from the freezing weather.
As per the grass cost, Toma said, “In the first 27 Super Bowls, we never spent more than $1,000 on the field, and this one here is around $800,000.”
NFL officials have yet to confirm the cost of putting and treating the grass, but coming from the Sodfather, we can accept his word.