One of my favorite pieces of marketing is Boise State’s Smurf Turf. It is the only non-green football field in the NCAA. It was originally installed in 1986, but really didn’t catch fame until recent years.

Boise State won the 2007 ESPY award for Game of the Year and Play of the Year for their unforgettable over time win against Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Another interesting fact is the Broncos are 58-2 at home since 1999. On blue turf.

Is it expensive? Sure. It costs $750,000 every 3 - 4 years to replace.

But it’s remarkable. No other football team in the country plays on blue turf. It’s immediately recognizable from any tv and it can even be seen from space.

What I think is funny…. imagine the first conversations that took place over this, “Okay guys, call me crazy, but what if we turned the football field blue?”

I give a lot of props to the university for taking such a huge risk.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am and is filed under Marketing & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.