Shaw Sports Turf Featured on AFCA Podcast

Throughout the 2025 college football season, the end zones at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium have gained notoriety.

It’s hard not to see why.

Against the dark blue turf in both end zones lies wheat stalk stretched from pylon to pylon, with “KANSAS” displayed over the top of it, giving the Jayhawks’ new turf a unique look that not many around the country have been accustomed to seeing.

The same could be said for the University of Denver’s new lacrosse field – a design that displays the city’s skyline on top of the Rocky Mountains – or for multiple high schools and colleges around the country.

So, how are these schools drawing attention for not only the athletic product they produce, but also the surface they play on?

It all comes back to Shaw Sports Turf and their new Game On technology.

“It’s really the next level of synthetic turf,” said Matt Ross, a regional vice president of Shaw Sports Turf.

On a traditional turf field, numbers, hash marks, lines, names, and logos are all inserted into the turf after cuts are made. This practice creates seams on the field, which can compromise the integrity of the turf and are potential failure points or “pops.”

Game On mitigates all of those factors. The turf fields are created at Shaw Sports’ factory, and the features are tucked in before the turf arrives at its destination.

“If you think about it, there are more than 300 cuts on a traditional turf field, and that’s just football. That doesn’t include any other line packages that we might put in,” Ross said. “With Game On, all of that is tucked in at the factory. When we show up to your field and we unroll a roll of turf, it’s got every line, every number, every hash already in. So, you never have to worry about that coming up, like you would in a traditional turf field.”

Shaw Sports’ new technology expands their design capabilities, giving schools and universities around the country the ability to get creative with their playing surfaces. It allows them to be more innovative with their logos or attributes that make their programs unique.

The turf fields at Kansas and Denver are just two examples of the creative solutions Shaw Sports provides. Montana Tech’s new turf field was featured in EA Sports’ NCAA Football video game, and several high schools in the United States have utilized Game On to enhance their playing surfaces.

“Some of the big things that we are doing now would normally really hurt the integrity of the field,” Ross said. “Now, you don’t have to worry about that … It’s really awesome to see the design capabilities we can create for an owner.”

At the beginning of each project, clients are paired up with their own designer at Shaw Sports so that they can collaborate on the field’s design and discuss what needs to be included.

These discussions often revolve around the color of the field, the lines that need to be featured – several different sports are often played on one turf field at the high school level – and any other attributes, such as the wheat in Kansas’ end zone or the city’s skyline on Denver’s lacrosse field.

“We really try to offer a white-glove experience,” Ross said. “The folks that express interest, we’ll start them down the path a little bit and say, ‘Hey, this is what is possible.’ But then we’re going to pair that client up with their own designer and start walking them through the process. We’ve got 23 standard colors that we offer. We’ve got six different shades of green. So we can do mow patterns, water marks, different things like that. We can also do custom colors. We can customize pretty much anything to the client’s need.”

The design process for Game On is typically the longest part of the process, as fields can be installed quickly and seamlessly to adhere to the client’s needs. A normal turf field takes two to three weeks to be installed because the turf needs to be cut to insert the numbers, hashmarks and any other features.

According to Ross, Game On cuts that time frame down significantly because the extra features are already in the turf when it arrives at the school.

“We just completed a Game On installation last week in five days, so it goes really, really fast,” Ross said. “They don’t always go that fast with Game On, but it is a lot less than a traditional install.

“If you’ve got a bye week during the season, we can show up the day after that last game, and we can have you playing on it before your next home game. Traditionally, that’s never been available.”

As far as safety is concerned, Shaw Sports tests its Game On technology in its Peak Performance Lab. It puts athletes through the paces of a normal game to inspect the durability of the turf and ensure that it is okay for players to compete on.

The fact that there are fewer seams in the turf decreases the chances for “pops,” making the turf safer for athletes.

Shaw Sports has taken the synthetic turf game to a new and innovative level with Game On, and it’s changing the way fields are designed, installed, and the safety that accompanies it.

You can find Shaw Sports at booth #1007 at the AFCA Convention in Charlotte, NC January 11-13th 2026.