Rihanna’s half-time show has been blamed for causing the playing surface to deteriorate during the second half of the Super Bowl.
Players struggled to keep their feet throughout the contest, which the Kansas City Chiefs took out over the Philadelphia Eagles, but conditions noticeably got worse following the main break.
The Caribbean pop sensation thrilled the crowd during her 13-minute set, but according to NFL reporter Ian Rapoport, her stages resulted in the surface being made worse.
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Rapoport broke down exactly how Rihanna’s performance impacted the surface on the Pat McAfee Show after the former NFL star described the field as an “embarrassment”.
“The halftime show, which basically spanned the entire field, it pressed the grass, it heated it up and got it slick,” he said.
“It basically increased the moisture in the grass because it didn’t allow it to breathe because it pressed down on the grass. Then you take the halftime show off the grass and it’s a little bit wetter, and in the third quarter everybody was sliding around.”
Rapoport’s revelation came after Australian Eagles star Jordan Mailata called the surface “terrible”, adding that “it was like playing on a water park”.
Close-up shots during the second half showed patches of grass torn up from the players’ cleats, with Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts even having to change his boots.
The NFL spent two years preparing the surface inside Arizona’s State Farm Stadium for the Super Bowl, paying over $1.1 million for the grass grown at a local sod farm in Phoenix.
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