Removable turf field sets up potential NFL-sized bidding war for Texas state football championships

Everything in Texas is bigger, including high school football. Cowboys Stadium has proved powerful testament to that over the past two seasons, hosting the state's championship football games (all classifications of them in 2011) and bringing in significant revenue as a result.

How much revenue has Cowboys Stadium derived from the one-off high school events? Enough that the stadium has sparked an impromptu bidding war for future state title games, to the degree that its biggest competitor to host the event, Houston's Reliant Stadium, recently purchased a retractable artificial turf surface so it could bid to play the game in Houston.

To be fair, Reliant's new surface will be the setting for other games, too, notably college tussles like the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas and potential crosstown showdowns between Rice and Houston. Still, Reliant Stadium officials have been vocal for more than a year about their desire to host the game.

Just think: Two professional football franchises in a fight over prep football title games. If it sounds odd to you, you're not alone … but you're also probably not a Texan.

As noted by the Houston Chronicle, Mark Miller, the man who oversees the Reliant complex in whole, said that the decision to purchase the artificial turf field was made to try and save the natural grass for NFL action. Still, there's little chance that the opportunity to host big time high school games didn't play some part in the final deliberations over whether or not to pull the trigger on the rather sizable outlay for the new field.

Want proof? Just check out this quote from Miller about the new surface.

"We think new event revenue can recover the cost in very short order. Anything that is not the NFL, we will try to play it on the artificial turf if the schedule allows."

If Reliant Stadium lands future Texas title games, Miller will be proved right in short order, though Jerry Jones won't be happy a few hours away.

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