The NFL actually paid for the turf and the technology to switch the fields around.
Yep, it was a joint effort with Tottenham and the NFL to secure a viable space to play (and one that's actually in London). Beautiful stadium too, Populous did a great job!
 

Curious as to what renovations may be taking place
Great find! I suspect they'll pursue a temporary North Stand Expansion and close the road between the Better Living Centre on a temporary basis. Fitting in new temporary scoreboards at the corners or within the temporary North stands doesn't seem do disruptive.

Once the World Cup is over, they can remove the temporary additions and revert to the current set up. Maybe even sell the temporary seats as memorabilia! ;)

If it's more permanent expansion, I'm excited to see what they come up with!
 
Great find! I suspect they'll pursue a temporary North Stand Expansion and close the road between the Better Living Centre on a temporary basis. Fitting in new temporary scoreboards at the corners or within the temporary North stands doesn't seem do disruptive.

Once the World Cup is over, they can remove the temporary additions and revert to the current set up. Maybe even sell the temporary seats as memorabilia! ;)

If it's more permanent expansion, I'm excited to see what they come up with!

They can't really expand the South stand anymore then they've done in the past so I had a feeling it may be on the North stand.

Fingers crossed for a more permanent solution!
 
They can't really expand the South stand anymore then they've done in the past so I had a feeling it may be on the North stand.

Fingers crossed for a more permanent solution!
They will build a second level over the south stands as the roof was built to accommodate this. I'm hoping it will look much better than it did during TFC's first finals run/Grey Cup/Centennial Classic, even if it's temporary.
 
They will build a second level over the south stands as the roof was built to accommodate this. I'm hoping it will look much better than it did during TFC's first finals run/Grey Cup/Centennial Classic, even if it's temporary.

I didn't know the roof was built to accommodate a second level, good to hear though!
 
If they expand the North stand it’ll need to be done in a way that keeps the end zone available - probably something like how arenas tuck basketball seats under the bowl to accommodate hockey.
 
A necessity due to two teams playing on the same field?
How useful would a frozen tundra playing surface be for soccer in January?
It appears late February is so far the earliest time of the year BMO Field was used.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/spo...skeepers-ready-the-pitch-for-february-soccer/
But now the Canadian men's national soccer team must host a World Cup Qualifying match on Jan. 30, 2022, against USA, and the otherwise logical choice of location, Vancouver, may be rejected for travel reasons. Supposedly it could now be BMO Field, or Hamilton if the BMO Field hybrid turf won't work for January. It seems the cold weather and artificial turf in Edmonton wasn't a problem last night.
Edit: BMO Field's hybrid (combination of plastic and real grass) turf will likely be good for any time of year, as the same brand of turf works for Green Bay in January. It held together for an Argo game on Saturday October 30th when it was raining for most of the day. An all grass field would have been turned into mud. A Toronto FC soccer game was then held there without problem on Wednesday November 3rd.
https://www.turfandrec.com/bmo-fields-new-hybrid-turf-surface-7165/
... head groundskeeper ... “Literally, I’m growing grass on this field 12 months of the year,” he said.
 
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If they expand to 45K, we have a potential location for a temporary home for an NFL team, if that pipe dream ever happens. We know the NFL doesn't like the Skydome, but they do want to expand (especially beyond the US), so a 45K BMO Field seems like exactly what they would be looking for until we can build something bigger (The Chargers were playing in a smaller soccer stadium the last couple seasons, so it's not unrealistic). Plus you can actually have tailgating at BMO Field, since it has surface parking.

No idea if any of that would happen, but a bigger BMO Field makes it far more plausible.
 
If they expand to 45K, we have a potential location for a temporary home for an NFL team, if that pipe dream ever happens. We know the NFL doesn't like the Skydome, but they do want to expand (especially beyond the US), so a 45K BMO Field seems like exactly what they would be looking for until we can build something bigger (The Chargers were playing in a smaller soccer stadium the last couple seasons, so it's not unrealistic). Plus you can actually have tailgating at BMO Field, since it has surface parking.

No idea if any of that would happen, but a bigger BMO Field makes it far more plausible.
The expansion to BMO would only be for the world cup .
 
They will build a second level over the south stands as the roof was built to accommodate this. I'm hoping it will look much better than it did during TFC's first finals run/Grey Cup/Centennial Classic, even if it's temporary.
It was a lot of scaffolding and porta-johns there in November 2016. I'm not sure if FIFA would find that to be acceptable for a World Cup venue.
Nov_2016_BMO_Field.JPG
 
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