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Expos to play on FieldTurf - if they return
Montreal Gazette
Wednesday October 03, 2001
Stephanie Myles
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If Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and the owners vote on Tuesday to immediately contract the Expos, which is certainly possible but hardly certain, it will be a moot point.
But if they don't make that decision - and every delay will increase the likelihood of the club returning for 2002 - the Expos will play on brand-new FieldTurf at Olympic Stadium.
"We're all sitting on pins and needles," FieldTurf president John Gilman said yesterday. "We may have a turf in there; we'll know on Nov. 6."
The parameters of the deal are in place after a meeting between FieldTurf and Expos vice-president (development and stadium operations) Claude Delorme. Only some foot-dragging on the part of the Olympic Installations Board, which runs the stadium, kept the deal from already being done and the turf installed in time for the Nov. 25 Grey Cup.
The retail cost of the new-generation artificial turf - like the one used by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Tropicana Field and not the problematic one installed at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia - would normally be about $1 million. But FieldTurf will install it at Olympic Stadium basically in exchange for the value of the exposure it would receive from most of the Expos' 81 home games being broadcast in the U.S.
"We bought into the idea that we can get $300,000 to $500,000 worth of advertising from being on TV 81 times next year," said Gilman, who added that a big FieldTurf banner would be placed behind home plate.
It's not a money-making venture for FieldTurf, which installs 150 fields a year.
"But we think we could come out even, and we could provide a better surface at the stadium," Gilman said.
Multinational insurance company AIG and the NFL Quarterbacks Club, which counts Dan Marino, John Elway, Boomer Esiason and Warren Moon among its members, have purchased a 36-per-cent equity interest in FieldTurf.
With 18 full-time employees currently in Montreal, FieldTurf has the personnel available to install the carpet after Christmas. It would take 21/2 to three weeks to install, and the company can crank out the product at one of its manufacturing sites in three days, if necessary.
The OIB had concerns about the versatility of the turf, with one report claiming it would cost $500,000 to convert the surface for the annual Home Show, which is held on the stadium surface.
Gilman said his FieldTurf can stay where it is. If the OIB wants to cover it up, the plastic tarp needed costs 21 cents per square foot (about $25,000), which would allow the OIB to throw dirt on top of it for a super-motocross event or put down a hard floor for other events.
So, everything is in place to finally replace the 13-year-old AstroTurf at the Big O. The only question remaining is whether there will be a need for it.