ESPN STORY INTRODUCES THE BEAST FIELD TESTING DEVICE
By Stephania Bell
An ESPN feature posted on March 6, 2024, by ESPN Senior Writer Stephania Bell, was titled, “Introducing the BEAST—Te NFL’s Answer to Creating Consistent Playing Surfaces—How Collecting Data on Playing Surfaces Could Lead to Consistency Across the NFL.”
Te following article features excerpts from that story. For the full story, go to the link that follows.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39660380/the-brsdt- msvhinr-nfl-gathers-data-consistent-playing-surfaces
Perhaps more than the surface composition itself, the lack of consistency from one field to the next is often the most frustrating aspect of the [synthetic turf versus natural grass] debate for players. Te National Football League (NFL) acknowledges that, as of now, there are potentially too many different types of surfaces, both synthetic and natural grass.
While several studies have been published comparing injury rates on various synthetic versus grass surfaces, thus far there has not been a means of onsite testing of individual field surfaces through a biomechanical engineering lens.
Enter: the BEAST. During the 2023 season, the NFL and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) launched a pilot program involving a mobile machine that traveled to multiple stadiums to test various surfaces under a range of conditions, the first such testing ever done. Additionally, four stadiums—MetLife in New Jersey, Ford Field in Detroit, Mercedes-Benz in Atlanta, and AT&T Stadium in Dallas—had a mobile unit housed at their facilities.
Te aggregated 2023 data is being analyzed now. Te NFL/NFLPA Engineering and Joint Field Surfaces Committees will meet to discuss early findings this offseason, and those parties will continue the dialogue as data collection continues. Te plan is to formally present their analytics to the league and the players association after another year of data collection, sooner if there is a dramatic discovery worthy of immediate attention.
Developing the BEAST THE BEAST (BIOMECHANICAL Elite Athlete Shoe- Turf Tester) was originally developed for the laboratory in 2008 by the NFL engineering consultants at Biocore. Using samples of synthetic surfaces from playing fields, scientists could study the properties of rotation and traction after impact—two forces an NFL athlete's leg encounters—when the cleat contacts the ground and engages with the field surface.
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Te NFL and NFLPA launched a pilot program involving a mobile machine that traveled to multiple stadiums to test various surfaces under a range of conditions, the first such testing ever done. Photo courtesy of Stephania Bell and ESPN
"Traction is really the stickiness or slipperiness of the surface," said Dr. Kristy Arbogast, a member of the joint NFL/NFLPA Engineering Committee who has worked with the NFLPA on injury prevention topics for the last decade. "So if a player goes to cut or pivot as they start their route, as linemen try to dig in and withstand opposing linemen, having the field—and that interaction between their body and the surface—be steady and repeatable but not grab too much is really what traction means."
By creating a cleat model based on the attributes of an average NFL player, scientists have been able to obtain valuable insights into the relationship between the cleat and the surface, but there were limitations to the lab setting. By only testing a small surface sample, it was not possible to truly extrapolate results to all areas of a playing field. Te size of the first-generation BEAST and the manpower required to operate it did not allow for onsite testing.
Enter the mobile BEAST. In 2020, Dr. Philipe Aldahir, a senior research engineer, joined the Biocore team to work on the second generation of the machine with the intent of bringing the lab to the field. By automating multiple operational elements under the housing of the unit, the newest version of the BEAST is both mobile and easier for an individual to operate. It can travel to multiple locations on the field, encompassing the area from one end zone to the other and from sideline to sideline.
TPI Turf News May/June 2024
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