For many high schools, installing synthetic turf gives their teams a competitive edge. The synthetic turf surface allows them to practice on the field 365 days a year, no matter the weather conditions, and habituates them to playing on a surface material that is quickly becoming the standard material in high school sports. However, installing the synthetic turf in the field can be prohibitively expensive for many high schools.

A high school in Belleville, IL, has taken a novel approach to raising the necessary funds to pay for their new synthetic turf field. The high school has sold ad space on the surface of the field itself to local companies. The field currently has 20 ads displayed in panels in the synthetic turf itself, including a local Chick-Fil-A. Additional funding for the synthetic turf field came from clubs and donations.

The ad panels are currently sold for five-year periods, and when the companies want to remove the ads, all the high school has to do is cut out the turf with the ad display on it and replace it with a synthetic turf that matches the color of the rest of the field, or replace it with a new ad-paneled synthetic turf.

It's a proven effective option of raising money to pay for synthetic turf fields that you may want to propose at your next school board meeting.