The quality of sports fields, at any level of sport, is always opened to judgement from players, officials and locals creating challenges for sports turf managers. High demand from sporting clubs leads to regular grumbling of overuse of sportsfields as a significant problem – but is it really?
Dr Mick Battam, AgEnviro Solutions, undertook a study on sportsfield usage and reported that the usage across 1157 playing fields in 24 local government areas across the Sydney basin was crystal clear, that many councils are justifying installing expensive synthetic fields based on flawed usage data.
There is considerable confusion on sports field usage levels, with some groups ascertaining that many fields are receiving more than 60 hours per week of use. This report written by Dr Mick Battam was commissioned by the Turf Industry (Turf NSW, Turf Australia and Sport Turf Association NSW) to provide clear data on winter sport usage levels within the Sydney Basin.