More than one-fifth of the world’s population will watch FIFA World Cup 26 and see the real-world outcomes of UT’s turfgrass research to create the perfect playing surface for ultimate performance.
Distinguished Professor of Turfgrass Science and Management John Sorochan
Turfgrass scientists at UT are innovating from the ground up to prepare North America for the planet’s most-watched sporting competition—FIFA World Cup 26. The team, led by Distinguished Professor of Turfgrass Science and Management John Sorochan, is pushing the science of natural turf into new territory through a five-year collaboration with FIFA, soccer’s international governing body.
They’re starting with the 16 host stadiums and dozens of training sites across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, but the benefits won’t end with the competition’s final whistle. UT researchers aim to develop the best possible playing surface—one that ensures safety and top performance for world champions, youth club teams, and every player in between.
Young children play soccer on a turfgrass pitch.
Impacting Safety and Performance
The perfect playing surface looks good and performs better. “Turf consistency is key to athlete safety and performance,” Sorochan says. That means no divots, soft spots, or wet spots. The ball should bounce consistently. Players can count on having the ideal degree of traction across the field and the same playing conditions on every field during a tournament.
Sorochan’s co-investigator John Stier is associate dean of UT’s Herbert College of Agriculture and a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences as well as a trustee of the Foundation for Safer Athletic Fields for Everyone. Stier can cite a long list of athletes from multiple sports—including himself—who can no longer play after injuries directly related to playing surfaces.
Inconsistencies that can end the careers of soccer stars and Super Bowl champions can also hurt children. “The surface matters at every skill level,” Sorochan says. “In the US, over 30 million children play sports. A consistent playing surface can prevent them from getting injuries at a young age that affect their ability to be active now and later in life.”
The human impact drives sports turf research at UT. “We’ve collaborated with biomechanics and kinesiology faculty since 2008. We launched a multimillion-dollar partnership with AstroTurf in 2009 to open the Center for Athletic Field Safety,” Sorochan says. “Our goal is not only to understand turfgrass as plant scientists but to understand how athletes interact with it. Collaborating with FIFA aligns perfectly.”
The Research Team Roster
Sorochan’s team for the collaboration includes plant sciences faculty members, full-time technicians, and graduate and undergraduate students. Faculty members have served as turf consultants to the NFL and MLB and as sports field managers for soccer, football, baseball, golf, and Olympic venues.
“Compared to other universities, we have more people across more areas of expertise, including plant physiology, pathology, fertilizer, water, and resources,” Stier says.
The team includes Becky Bowling, an assistant professor and turfgrass Extension specialist, who focuses on supporting the development and management of turfgrass systems and bringing science-based information to industry professionals across the state.
The core team expands these capabilities by collaborating with other UT departments like kinesiology. They also tap the sports turf expertise of Sorochan’s former mentor John “Trey” Rogers III and his team at Michigan State University, which is a collaborator on the FIFA research.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (right) with UT Professor John Sorochan following a tour of the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center turf research and development facilities in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Stier and Sorochan worked under Rogers in the field development program for the 1994 World Cup, also hosted by the United States. Sorochan later served as a special advisor for FIFA.
“My relationship with FIFA paved the way for this collaboration, but it’s absolutely a team effort,” Sorochan says. “I’ve got the best colleagues, technicians, and students working with me, and UT supported us from the start.”
“We’re the first institution FIFA has invested research dollars in,” Stier says. “It all adds up to FIFA trusting UT research to deliver more consistent and consistently safe pitches.”
Winning Solutions
Rhys Fielder (BS ’19), a UT graduate student and the project’s full-time research lead, says the team’s overarching challenge is dealing with the differences from stadium to stadium.
“How do we enable North American sod farmers and field managers to implement FIFA requirements for consistent natural turfgrass when every host stadium is so different?”
From Mexico City to Vancouver and San Francisco to Boston, the 16 FIFA World Cup 26 stadiums and training sites span thousands of miles, multiple climate zones, and steep differences in altitude. But here’s the kicker: eight of the 16 are designed to primarily use artificial turf—not natural grass—and five are domed.
UT turfgrass researcher Rhys Fielder speaks to attendees during the FIFA Field Day and Club World Cup Workshop at the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center.
To begin, UT and Michigan State researchers whittled down the options for grass species. They chose bermudagrass for use in warmer climates and Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass for cooler climates. They’re testing the latter two species, which better tolerate shade, for use in domed stadiums.
Fielder oversees those experiments inside the FIFA-funded state-of-the-art indoor research facility at the UT Institute of Agriculture’s East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center.
“Domed stadiums remove sunlight,” Fielder says, “so we’ve determined how to meet 100 percent of plant energy requirements using the LED lighting systems every 2026 host site will use.”
PhD student Conlan Burbrink (BS ’20) is experimenting with different LED products to test how the color of the light affects plant growth and health. While this research and technology might not have a direct impact in the 2026 tournament, the results will help advance the management of indoor natural grass systems.
Installing live plants in place of artificial turf posed the most complex hurdles. Beneath a typical high-end natural turfgrass field, 12 inches of sand and four inches of gravel promote root growth and provide stability for players. Those layers aren’t an option at the eight host stadiums designed for artificial turf.
“We had to develop a temporary system enabling rapid installation and removal between the events packed into those stadiums’ schedules,” Fielder says. “For that, we needed a reduced root zone able to support plant health, playability, and safety that could sustain for a minimum of three months.”
The team chose sod grown on plastic sheeting to reduce plant stress during initial harvest and subsequent installation. Beneath the sod, they tested the shock pads frequently used with artificial turf.
Before the FIFA project, Sorochan and CAFS Co-Director Kyley Dickson (BS ’12, MS ’14, PhD ’17) developed a unique way to test the performance and playability of both natural and artificial turf. The fLEX Device simulates an athlete’s foot strike and uses sensors to reveal real-time interactions with the turf.
The fLEX Device is displayed during the FIFA Field Day and Club World Cup Workshop at the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center.
“UT biomechanics experts helped validate the approach and fLEX’s accuracy,” Fielder says. “We implemented fLEX into the FIFA research for an evidence-based understanding of our turf.”
“The fLEX Device and other testing metrics showed we didn’t need shock pads,” Fielder says. “But we had to prop the grass off the concrete flooring somehow to allow air and water movement for plant health.”
Using fLEX, they tested Permavoid, a product marketed for stormwater drainage. “We learned that our four inches of Permavoid, two inches of sod on plastic had similar ground reaction forces as the typical deep sand-based root zone construction,” Fielder says. “Meaning, from the athlete’s perspective, it should perform very similarly.”
“Five years ago, I would have said it was impossible for a shallow profile pitch to provide a playing surface so similar to conventional field construction. But we figured it out!” Stier says. “We also significantly cut installation time, reduced costs, and increased sustainability. Our team has successfully built on decades of experience to accomplish something entirely new.”
“We’ve conducted over 170 experiments with FIFA. We’ve worked at their pace, adjusting quickly to changes and challenges, always providing evidence-based data,” Sorochan says. “Looking forward, we’re innovating to sustain grass indoors for longer, introduce ultra-efficient irrigation, reduce lighting needs, and translate alternate sports field construction models to professional and college stadiums plus city recreational fields.”
Connecting with Practitioners
As a land-grant university, UT prioritizes outreach. Bowling is developing research-based programming to equip Tennessee’s sod producers, sports field managers, and other relevant practitioners with cost-effective, sustainable turf solutions.
Attendees look at machinery during the FIFA Field Day and Club World Cup Workshop at the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center.
UT and Michigan State have also hosted FIFA Pitch Research Field Days. Field managers from the host stadiums and training sites joined hundreds of other turf professionals from more than 60 countries to see the research firsthand. “These events were a first taste of the visibility and outreach opportunities afforded by the World Cup,” Sorochan says.
The team saw their research in action for the first time in September 2024. “A domed venue for 2026, AT&T Stadium in Dallas, hosted a friendly [a noncompetitive match] between Canada and Mexico. They installed and played on the shallow profile pitch,” Fielder says. “We received very positive reviews.”
Beyond 26
A detail image of the turfgrass layers being installed in Atlanta, Georgia, for the FIFA Club World Cup games in summer 2025.
Sorochan is already musing about satellite research facilities in Spain for the 2030 tournament. “I hope our collaboration continues,” he says. “Research at such a high level and high visibility will hopefully have a trickle-down effect. It’s important to keep developing science-based resources that make fields safer for players at all levels.”
Stier suggests that the legacy of this research could stretch even further in another direction. “In addition to player safety, something driving me is how we’ll grow plants to feed humanity and grass for playing sports 100 or 200 years from now in colonies in space. When we add these kinds of perspectives, it greatly expands our ideas.”
Sorochan and Stier agree that the collaboration demonstrates how UT lives its mission as a land-grant university. “We solve real-world challenges and distribute research to the people and industries that need it,” Stier says. “Now we get to show the world how UT makes life and lives better.”
Find out more about UT’s turfgrass research work with FIFA.