The world's sports fans turn their collective attention to the United States, Canada, and Mexico this summer, as North America hosts football teams from across the globe for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Fans have filled the stadiums, and the tournament has attracted massive interest from coast to coast.
But not too long ago, the games came to the Pontiac Silverdome for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, making it the first indoor venue in tournament history.
Michigan’s unlikely World Cup bid
In You Can’t Get There From Here: My Soccer Journey From Derby to Detroit British-born Detroiter Roger Faulkner retells how he led the successful effort to bring World Cup matches to Michigan.
Faulkner first floated the idea in 1988, the year FIFA officially awarded the 1994 tournament to the United States. At the time, soccer’s popularity in the U.S. was modest, and the idea of hosting matches in Michigan — let alone indoors — seemed far‑fetched.
“I called a group of soccer leaders together and said I wanted to bring the World Cup to Michigan and I got laughed out of the room,” Faulkner said.
To even be considered, he told the group, Michigan would need to raise $3 to $4 million.
“To them, that appeared absolutely ludicrous considering the level [of interest] that soccer was at in the United States,” he explained.
Still, as president of the Michigan Soccer Association, Faulkner persisted. Michigan submitted a formal expression of interest, and in 1990, FIFA agreed to consider the Silverdome as a potential indoor host stadium — a first in World Cup history.
“We had to raise about $87,000 in three weeks to get the final bid in March of 1991,” Faulkner said.
Engineering the impossible: growing grass indoors
Winning the bid proved to be the easiest part. It would take three years to prepare the Silverdome stadium for the game and to convince naysayers that a World Cup match could be played indoors.
“The idea that [we] would bastardize it by playing indoors on natural grass seemed even more precocious and creative,” he said.
To solve the turf problem, Faulkner partnered with researchers at Michigan State University, home to one of the world’s leading turfgrass programs.
To test different soil materials and types of grass, scientists built a 6,600 square foot fiberglass dome at the Hancock Turfgrass Research Center where they would control for light, diseases, heat and moisture while mimicking the conditions of the actual stadium.
“The roof of the Silverdome, which was translucent, only allowed 20% of the sun rays that are needed to enable grass to grow,” Faulkner said. “Whatever you did with it, it would grow weak and thin as it attempted to reach the light.”
So the team pivoted: instead of growing the grass in Michigan, they would grow it in California, then ship it to Pontiac.
The final turf was a blend of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass, grown in California during the winter of 1992–93.
“We grew the grass in California and it was shipped in large air conditioned refrigerated container trucks from California to Pontiac,” he said.
Building a field from scratch
Before the sod arrived, scientists prepared a custom soil mix of sand and peat inside the Silverdome. They then assembled 1,850 hexagonal modules, each about 49 square feet in the stadium parking lot. The trays were filled with soil, and the sod was installed over 10 days.
“The seams disappeared and the grass was maintained,” Faulkner said.
The field was irrigated and mowed daily until the grass reached 1.25 inches in height. Then came the final challenge: moving the entire field indoors.
It took 30 people working over 44 hours across five days to transport the hexagonal modules into the Silverdome using flatbed trailers and forklifts.
Throughout this process, World Cup turfgrass evaluators tested the field by conducting ball-roll and ball-bounce evaluations. Just one day after the final module was installed, the field was ready for play.
“I remember one time… we went out and we had a little tea party for our staff on the field and it actually rained inside the Silverdome,” he explained. “Because the condensation from the watered grass as it went up and cooled led to a little bit of rain.”
Michigan’s World Cup moment
Years of hard work paid off and on June 18, 1994, the Pontiac Silverdome hosted its first World Cup match. The United States vs. Switzerland game ended in a draw, but it marked a historic moment for both Michigan and the tournament as the first World Cup indoor match.
By the end of the tournament, the Silverdome had hosted four matches and welcomed hundreds of thousands of fans from around the world.
The final match played in Michigan — Brazil vs. Sweden — drew nearly 80,000 spectators, close to the stadium’s full capacity.
Looking back, Faulkner said he is proud to have been part of that history and to have witnessed the growth of soccer in the United States. He said the enthusiasm surrounding the World Cup today demonstrates how far the sport has come since 1994.
“Most Americans don’t have passports, they don’t meet people from overseas, they don’t involve themselves with other cultures and when other cultures come here it's eye opening,” Faulkner said. “It's a wonderful thing to see that Americans finally understand that the rest of the world exists and has something to offer.”
Even though the Pontiac Silverdome has been demolished and is no longer open to the public, for Faulkner, bringing the 1994 World Cup there is an achievement he considers a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment.
