In sports that were originally or are normally played on grass, artificial turf is a grass_like playing surface manufactured from synthetic materials.

Artificial turf first came to prominence in 1965, when AstroTurf was installed in the newly-built Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The use of AstroTurf and similar surfaces such as 3M's "TartanTurf" and "Poly Turf" became widespread in the 1970s and was installed in both indoor and outdoor stadiums used for baseball and football in the United States and Canada. Maintaining a grass playing surface indoors, while technically possible, is prohibitively expensive, while teams which chose to play on artificial surfaces outdoors did so because even outdoors the clubs believed that maintaining a grass surface to the increasingly high standards demanded by leagues, players and even fans was often still far more expensive than installing and maintaining artificial turf - especially in colder climates and urban multi-purpose "cookie cutter" stadia such as Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium and Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium just to name a few.

Some soccer clubs in Europe installed artificial surfaces in the 1980s. Called plastic pitches (often derisively) in countries such as England, by this decade artificial turf had gained a bad reputation on both sides of the Atlantic with fans and especially with players. AstroTurf in particular is a far harder surface than grass, and soon became known an unforgiving playing surface which was prone to cause more injuries (and more serious injuries) than a grass surface. The AstroTurf surfaces were also aesthetically unappealling to many fans. In the 1990s many North American clubs responded to this pressure by removing their artifical surfaces and re-installing grass, while others would move to new stadiums with state-of-the-art grass surfaces that were designed to withstand cold temperatures where the climate demanded it. In soccer, the use of artificial turf was banned by FIFA, UEFA and by many domestic associations.

In the early 21st century, new artificial playing surfaces such as FieldTurf and Sport Grass were developed. These "next generation" surfaces are often virtually indistinguishable from grass when viewed from any distance, and are generally regarded as being about as safe to play on as a typical grass surface - perhaps even safer in cold conditions. Many clubs formerly using Astroturf and similar surfaces have installed the new surfaces, while some clubs which have maintained grass surfaces are now re-considering artificial turf. With soccer clubs in countries such as Scotland looking to reduce the number of winter matches that are routinely cancelled due to frozen pitches, the issue has also been re-visited by that sport's governing bodies. In 2004 the IFAB announced that they would permit the use of certain artificial surfaces which meet FIFA standards, including FieldTurf. UEFA have since announced that starting in the 2005-06 season, approved artificial surfaces will be permitted in their competitions.