How the NFL Moved the Vikings-Rams Playoff Game Away From the L.A. Fires

3 weeks ago 14

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Monday night’s game in Arizona between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings is the first time the league has relocated a postseason game since 1936.

People standing under tents with Los Angeles Rams logos on them, in a parking lot outside a silver football stadium.
The Los Angeles Rams will be the home team Monday night in their game against the Minnesota Vikings at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.Credit...Ash Ponders for The New York Times

Ken Belson

  • Jan. 13, 2025Updated 5:30 p.m. ET

Matthew Giachelli got the call he anticipated on Thursday morning: The N.F.L. 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 on 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 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, Miss., provides paint to most N.F.L. and top college teams. Within hours, he and his co-workers had loaded five-gallon buckets of nine custom paint colors, as well as stencils for the N.F.L. 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, the vice president of production and distribution.

Image

Buckets of paint being unloaded at State Farm Stadium, where the dominant color is normally red.Credit...World Class Paints

Getting the right paint was just one of hundreds of details that the league, the Rams, the Vikings, the host Arizona Cardinals and ASM Global, which operates State Farm Stadium, have juggled since the N.F.L. decided to move the wild-card round game.


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