Kinnick Stadium To Get FieldTurf

April 2, 2009

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IOWA CITY, IA – The University of Iowa has become the seventh Big Ten university to elect to install FieldTurf at its football stadium. The decision to install FieldTurf at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium was jointly announced by Hawkeye Director of Athletics Gary Barta and FieldTurf CEO Joe Fields. The installation of the new state-of-the-art FieldTurf will begin in June, and the turf will make its official debut on September 5 when the Hawkeyes host Northern Iowa.

FieldTurf replaces the grass that is currently in place at Kinnick Stadium. Iowa thus joins Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin as Big Ten schools that will play its home games on FieldTurf, the undisputed world leader in artificial surfacing.

“We’re excited about fixing the significant drainage problems in Kinnick Stadium, and updating our field system to the first-class level representative of Hawkeye Football,” said Barta. “FieldTurf is a proven product. The company has successfully installed fields in many of the top collegiate and professional venues in the country.”

“Kinnick Stadium is one of the nation’s historical college venues, and we are proud that our product will be there,” said Fields. “Big Ten football has as much tradition and respect as any conference in America, and we are simply thrilled by the fact that FieldTurf is the dominant surface of choice in that prestigious conference. FieldTurf takes nothing for granted, and our company continues to strive to always make our product the very best that it can be.

“And it is certainly gratifying to have our efforts validated with the confidence that top football programs like Iowa continue to have in us. I know that Coach (Kirk) Ferentz and his players will appreciate the abundant values of FieldTurf when they take the field at Kinnick this fall.”

Kinnick Stadium ranks as one of the 20 largest college-owned stadiums in the nation. With a capacity of 70,585, it was named for Iowa’s 1939 Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick. Just two years ago, Kinnick Stadium underwent an $89 million renovation that included new locker rooms, a new scoreboard, a new press box along with the addition of private suites. Iowa is a constant on the NCAA’s list of the top 25 universities in football attendance.

More than 50 top NCAA universities currently play their home games on FieldTurf. In addition to the Big Ten schools already cited, others with FieldTurf include Nebraska, Texas, West Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Kansas State, Boston College, Missouri, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincinnati and Louisville. Twenty-one of the NFL’s 32 teams presently utilize FieldTurf in their stadiums and/or practice facilities. In addition, MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays have FieldTurf at their respective stadiums.

The NFL Players Association released their bi-annual ranking of NFL stadium fields during a January 29 press conference in Tampa prior to the Super Bowl. Once again, the results tabbed FieldTurf as the runaway leader among all artificial turf brands. In data gathered from polling/voting of over 1500 NFL players, 40% of the league’s Top Ten surfaces were FieldTurf fields. In addition, four of the top five and eight of the top ten artificial turf fields in the league are FieldTurf, according to that NFLPA data.

FieldTurf Tarkett, a Division of the Tarkett Group, is the largest entity in the sports and landscape surfacing industries. FieldTurf Tarkett and its global sales network offers unparalleled leasing and financing capabilities, engineering, and manufacturing resources, while leading the synthetic turf industry on setting higher environmental standards. In addition to its world-renowned FieldTurf and Prestige brands of synthetic turf installed in over 3000 sports field applications, FieldTurf has attained over 12,000 satisfied customers in high quality pet, residential, commercial and municipal landscaping solutions, playground surfacing, along with its complete range of golf and tennis products. FieldTurf synthetic turf customers enjoy the benefits of considerable LEED building contributions, significantly reduced water consumption, the elimination of fertilizer and pesticides usage, in addition to superior durability and drainage in a product that looks and feels real. Included within FieldTurf Tarkett’s portfolio is an equally impressive range of sports flooring products that can also represent LEED building contributions. This range is comprised of synthetic and hardwood basketball, volleyball and gymnasium flooring, squash and racquetball courts, floor protection and covering systems, weight room flooring, high performance indoor and outdoor running tracks, featuring the Beynon track surfaces. All of FieldTurf Tarkett’s surfaces are developed, produced and installed with a concentration on sustainability and a commitment to protecting the environment. The company calls it ‘Environmental Intelligence’ and lives by this principle in every way.