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2016 SOCCER FIELD OF THE YEAR
2016 Soccer Field of the Year - Commercial FC Dallas • MoneyGram Soccer Park
MoneyGram Soccer Park is a premier soccer venue located in Dallas, Texas. This site was originally a landfill until a joint venture was formed with the City of Dallas and FC Dallas. The many years of planning and developing lead to Moneygram’s opening in April of 2014 Moneygram’s facility boasts 14 professional grade full size soccer fields, 10 of which have lights and 6 youth size fields. Moneygram Soccer Park is open for play approximately 10 months out of the year. Moneygram hosts youth academy leagues, adult leagues, and a range of national tournaments. Money-gram has also had the privilege to host multiple national soccer teams from several countries around the world as well as international soccer clubs. Moneygram staff takes great pride in hosting trainings of international teams for both club and country. One of the longest running international tournaments that Moneygram has the privilege of hosting is the Dallas Cup. The Dallas Cup is a week long tournament with teams from several different countries as well as teams from all over the United States. It has been estimated that the economic impact for the City of Dallas from just this tournament is around $20-30 mil-lion annually. Moneygram’s staff often refers to this tournament as their “Super Bowl” and strive for perfection each April.
a large site with a small staff not only requires great planning and efficiency from each employee, but each individual must be cross trained to do multiple tasks on any given day. Money-gram has a wide range of equipment which consists of two Kubota tractors, three fairway reel mow-ers, two rotary mowers, a 200 gallon chemical sprayer, Pro Sweep Vacuum and four utility carts. Each tractor has multiple attachments, which include a Lely spreader, Verticutter, Slicing Aerator, Procore Aerator, and a 6 yard top-dresser. The equipment is a major reason that Moneygram staff is able to maintain the complex in an efficient manner throughout the soccer seasons. Compaction seems to be one of the bigger challenges that Moneygram’s staff is confronted with, so the cultural program dictates that staff must slice or cross-tine the fields every Monday to reduce compaction from weekday trainings and weekend games. Fields are mowed up to three times a week leaving staff one day to paint and another to set up for the multiple games hosted over the weekend. All fields are striped with a field lazer Graco painter each week. In the summer staff will coreaerify and top dress every soccer field once with about 20 tons of sand per acre. Moneygram’s 34 acres of soccer fields are over-seeded with a perennial rye blend
Moneygram’s staff consists of 4 full time employees and 2 part-time employees to manicure the 34 acres of fields, 4 acres of beds and the additional 40 acres of common areas. The fields at Moneygram were planted with Celebration Bermuda grass and are annually over-seeded with a professional blend of Rye grass for winter play. Maintaining such
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