Why rising temperatures might mean game over for some U.S. football stadiums

The owners of State Farm Stadium, hosts of this year’s Championship Match, have already invested hugely in adaptation measures, including ventilation, air conditioning, and a retractable roof. While these go a long way to mitigating the impact of heat stress on players, officials and fans, they also require a huge amount of energy – making them not only financially expensive for stadium owners, but also costly to the planet in terms of fossil fuel consumption.

Using EarthScan™, Cervest’s climate intelligence product, our team recently investigated the level of climate risks facing nine U.S. football stadiums that have already or will be hosting the American football’s headline sporting event. The resulting EarthScan insights make it clear that the threat from heat stress is already high, and will continue to rise over the next few years and decades.

American football players regularly push their bodies to – and beyond – their limits in service to their craft. Yet, even these world-class athletes, operating at peak physical fitness, are susceptible to the perils of heat stress. Heat stress symptoms include the inability to concentrate, muscle cramps, heat exhaustion and heat strokes which can result in death if not detected at an early stage.

“Your whole economic model changes at a certain temperature,” says Cervest’s Founder and CEO, Iggy Bassi. Iggy witnessed severely hot conditions first-hand while managing a farm in Ghana, “On extreme heat days, we knew ahead of time we had to change all of our labor rotas,” he says. “Beyond a certain temperature, the human body cannot work because the outside humidity is so high.”

Players aren’t just hanging about outside in the heat, they’re doing strenuous physical activity. The higher their work rate, the hotter their bodies get. While players from Arizona and states with similar climates are able to train specifically for forecasted Game Day weather, those from cooler, wetter states may not be able to do so as easily. Similarly, fans traveling and staying in Arizona, or near future host stadiums, from other states or even other countries, are far more likely to suffer from heat stress, being both less familiar with the intense heat, and less aware of its early warning symptoms to know when to seek shelter.

In order to know what the future holds for the Big Game and other mega sporting events, the climate impacts facing assets such as stadiums, hotels, restaurants and essential infrastructure must be clearly understood. Once they understand the risk - and opportunities – stadium managers can make informed decisions about which adaptation measures to invest in, and team managers can work with them to keep players, officials, fans and stadium workers safe.

Similar to the climate related financial disclosure regulation emerging in a number of countries, we may see a future where stadium managers and city officials hosting sporting events are required to declare not only adaptation measures they have taken, but also the conditions the players will have on the field. This would allow team managers from other climates to run acclimatization training, either for the higher temperatures, or for playing in heavily air conditioned stadiums. We do not want another #DeflateGate this time over the disadvantage one team’s players had as a result of unexpected climate conditions experienced in the stadium!

For more information about the climate intelligence provided by EarthScan read our fan alert: U.S. football stadiums are at high risk of extreme weather disruptions.