Fiber-Optic Grass

Watching the Chicago Bears being miserably trounced upon by the Green Bay Packers, I was reminded of an idea I had had a while ago for a new-fangled football field. Rather than grass or astroturf, what if a football field were made up of fiber-optics that were shaped like and felt similar to blades of grass?

How would this be useful? For one thing, you wouldn’t have to maintain a grass field well into the winter. You also wouldn’t have to paint lines on it. You could make the in-stadium experience more engaging by changing the endzone logos at halftime, showing the line of scrimmage right on the field, et cetera. And imagine the halftime show displays you could pull off. It’d be a very strong contender to rival even the Chicago Bulls’ opening sequence.

Yes, it probably would cost a heck of a lot of money to install. That investment, though, could easily be repaid through advertisements. Have you ever been to an NFL game? What happens during the television commercial breaks? It’s just a bunch of stupid ads you can barely pay attention to, right? Wouldn’t those advertisers pay a whole lot more money if they could take over a 4,700-inch, 38,000,000-pixel screen with 70,000 people having a near-perfect view of the whole thing? You’d better believe they would.

So, think about it, NFL team owners. Do some R&D to develop the most blade-of-grass-like fiber-optic endpoints possible, install them at your field, and see your advertising revenues rise and your ticket sales consistently max out.