Lawn care brand uses Super Bowl to call on NFL to switch all fields to grass

Lawn and garden care company Pennington is seizing on the Super Bowl to launch a campaign asking NFL teams to change all playing fields to real grass, citing negative effects of artificial turf. The Georgia lawn and garden care firm, one of more than 65 brands under garden supplier Central Garden & Pet, is working with NFL players such as San Francisco 49er George Kittle to launch a digitally-focused campaign pressuring the NFL to switch completely from artificial to grass turf. So far, 16 out of the NFL’s 32 teams play on artificial turf, according to NBC Sports, including the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. See which brands are buying ads in Super Bowl 2022. The company said it would bring and pay for the grass if NFL teams agree to switch from artificial turf. Positioning the campaign around the Super Bowl–where the Bengals and Rams will be playing on synthetic turf at SoFi Stadium–the brand will have a social media team responding to game moments and social media conversations during the event, while athletes who have partnered with Pennington also post about their demands for grass. The campaign includes asking football fans to sign a petition on Change.org. There has been “lots of conversation around this led by the players,” said Mike McGoohan, Central Garden & Pet’s senior VP of marketing and strategy. “We have a really unique role to play as someone who can help.” Although Pennington has been involved with the NFL before, it has “never taken an activist stand on an issue like this,” said McGoohan. The call to switch from turf to grass has been a longstanding one in the sports world, sometimes framed in terms of gender discrimination; the U.S. women’s national soccer team sued FIFA and later also refused to play on artificial turf. In 2020, the NFL Players Association President JC Tretter wrote a post on the NFLPA website calling for NFL teams to make the change from turf to grass, citing statistics including a 69% increase in non-contact foot and ankle injuries on turf compared to grass, according to NFL injury data from 2012 to 2018. In addition to athlete injuries, Pennington is plugging environmental benefits. McGoohan emphasized the effect turf has on climate change (these range from not being able to be recycled to getting far hotter than natural grass), presenting grass as a better alternative. Whether natural grass is actually better for the environment has been a subject of debate; the steps involved in lawn care including the use of fertilizer, which could be seen as taking an environmental toll. There is also the question of whether the grass can sustain the wear and tear of constant professional use, according to James Baird, a horticulturist and an extension specialist in turfgrass management at the University of California, Riverside. McGoohan said that Pennington has experience in maintaining grass on professional and collegiate fields. SoFi Stadium uses a synthetic Matrix Turf system, according to the L.A. Rams website, which touts the synthetic turf as having "proper fiber support, energy restitution, enhanced shock absorption, and rapid drainage – five crucial attributes for field longevity and player safety.” Pennington’s campaign is about making the brand “culturally relevant,” according to McGoohan, appealing to a new target audience of consumers who tend to be millennials focused on “working with nature not against it” and who aren’t caught up in lawn competitions, as in the past. Pennington used Droga5 for the campaign with Fleishman handling PR. Get the latest Ad Age Super Bowl 2022 news here.

Lawn care brand uses Super Bowl to call on NFL to switch all fields to grass

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