Moving NFL playoff game out of fire area is a logistical challenge

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Matthew Giachelli got the call he anticipated on Thursday morning: The NFL was moving the Rams’ playoff game to Arizona because of the wildfires raging in Los Angeles, and the league needed 200 gallons of paint pronto.

The game Monday between the Rams and the Minnesota Vikings would now be held at State Farm Stadium outside Phoenix, and it had to look and feel as if it were being played in the Rams’ usual home, SoFi Stadium. That included painting the field with the team’s and league’s logos and colors. The hometown Arizona Cardinals, though, did not have some of the needed hues on hand, including the Rams’ blue and yellow.

Giachelli’s company, World Class Athletic Surfaces in tiny Leland, Mississippi, provides paint to most NFL and top college teams. Within hours, he and his co-workers had loaded 5-gallon buckets of nine custom paint colors, as well as stencils for the NFL playoff logos, onto a truck that left Thursday afternoon on a 1,500-mile journey to Arizona.

“I definitely regret what’s going on in California, but I’m glad we could meet their needs,” said Giachelli, vice president for production and distribution.

Getting the right paint was just one of hundreds of details that the league, the Rams, the Vikings, the host Cardinals and ASM Global, which operates State Farm Stadium, had to juggle after the NFL decided to move the wild-card-round game.

The NFL has canceled preseason games and postponed and moved regular-season games over the years because of hurricanes, snowstorms and other calamities. But it had not moved a winner-take-all playoff showdown since 1936, when the site of its championship game was changed from Boston to New York to drum up ticket sales.

A battalion of people — from the front-office workers to the training staffs to the thousands of game-day workers — were mobilized on short notice. Each game, particularly in the playoffs, generates tens of millions of dollars for television networks, advertisers and stadium operators, and there was little margin for error.

“We’ve got to have a contingency for everything,” Michael Bidwill, owner of the Cardinals, said in an interview. “There’s a huge ripple effect” if games aren’t played.

The Cardinals helped out the Rams beyond just lending their stadium. Bidwill sent two team planes to Los Angeles to help the Rams get their 300-person entourage and equipment to Arizona. Babysitters, doctors and even an ice cream shop were identified for the players’ families.

Tickets had to be sold. Starting Friday morning, Rams season-ticket holders were given the first chance to buy seats, followed one hour later by Cardinals ticket holders. (Those who had tickets for the game at SoFi Stadium could get a refund or have the tickets applied as a credit toward their 2025 season tickets. Tickets for Glendale had to be bought separately.)

After two hours, 52,000 seats were sold. The general public then scooped up the remaining tickets for the game, which was won decisively by the Rams, 27-9.

Kathy and Kevin Page, a couple who live in Lake Elsinore, east of Los Angeles, bought their seats in the first wave, paying upward of $500 for two seats in the stadium’s lower bowl, plus parking passes. They met up with friends they tailgate with at Rams home games.

Called Melon Heads because they wear carved-out watermelons at games, the Pages were glad the game could still be played.

“Having the game here gives people a reprieve from what’s going on,” Kevin Page said. “With all the reports coming out about the fires, this gives us a chance to reboot ourselves.”

Page and his friends hung a banner on their tent that read, “Thank you Arizona Cardinals.”

Manuel Moreno, who goes by the nickname “Suspect, the Masked Ram,” rode on one of the several dozen buses that ferried hundreds of Rams fans from SoFi Stadium to Glendale. “We appreciate the hospitality,” he said. “It’s a stress relief from the 24-hour news about the fires.”

A big reason the NFL is the world’s most valuable league is scarcity. There are just 272 regular-season games and 13 playoff games, so each one is of critical importance to the 32 teams. (By contrast, there are about 400 MLB games every month during the season.) They are also critical to the owners of those teams and the league, as well as broadcast networks, sponsors and other companies that spend billions of dollars a year to attach their businesses and brands to the NFL.

With so much riding on each contest, the NFL does everything it can to play every game every year. When the league creates its season schedule each spring, it prepares contingency plans including an alternate site for each game. In 2022, when a massive snowstorm hit western New York, the Buffalo Bills played a home game at Ford Field in Detroit.

During the pandemic, outbreaks in locker rooms forced the league to postpone several games, though none were canceled. When pandemic conditions in Santa Clara County, California, deteriorated, the San Francisco 49ers moved to Arizona for a month, playing three home games in State Farm Stadium. Arizona was also a backstop in 2003 when the Chargers moved their home game against the Miami Dolphins because of fires in San Diego.

This time, the fires spread so quickly, the league decided to move the game five days before kickoff. Kevin Demoff, president of the Rams, said the team had been in constant contact with officials in Los Angeles, who initially thought the game could be held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which was unaffected by the fires.

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