Overnight last night Superbowl 50 played out to a global audience of billions, with the Denver Broncos putting on a textbook defence performance to hold out favourites the Carolina Panthers, beating them 24-10.

And as ever this showpiece event took place in a stadium using natural turf. This is a tradition of the Superbowl, even if the stadium being played in is usually artificial turf during the regular season, before the big game a natural surface is put down.

This year the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, home to the San Francisco 49s, had an entirely new surface laid which was a hybrid of Bermuda 419 grass over-seeded with perennial rye, grown on plastic sheeting. The 75,000 square feet of grass was provided by a company called West Coast Turf for the first time since some Super Bowls dating back a decade or more.

The choice of Levi's Stadium had raised a few eyebrows before last night's game because of the problems the 49s had with their pitch cutting up during the season. When the surface was going down a few weeks ago NFL field director Ed Mangan addressed this, telling the Associated Press, "We're kind of starting anew here with what we're doing. We do this on each one of the natural fields. We'll strip it completely. The field has done its job all season for them and it's done well, but for the Super Bowl we always put in a new field."

So from the perspective of a fan of the use of natural turf for high-profile, showcase events, the NFL's intentions cannot be faulted. Nor I'm sure can the professionalism and dedication of the crews that worked on the surface. It's just unfortunate that many headlines this morning are focusing on how poorly the surface held up during the game.

Certainly during the first half players from both teams did seem to be having difficulty maintaining their footing. It was reported that players were replacing the cleats on their boots to help with what some commentators were calling poor conditions.

According to a report on UK Business Insider the Broncos were complaining about slipping during warm-ups before the start of the game. During the first half, Panthers' tight end Greg Olson switched cleats because of the unruly grass, and later on Peyton Manning slipped on a play that was ultimately ruled an incomplete pass.

In the end what should have been a global advertisement for the glory of natural turf became a slight embarrassment. Of course matters can't have been helped by the masses of people allowed onto the pitch for the pre-game warm-up celebrations. And then at half time Coldplay had Beyonce and her troop of dancers come onto the turf - all gyrating around in high-heels!

So the groundstaff at the stadium were no doubt under intense pressure and it's unfortunate that on this occasion, matters have conspired which have made the surface fall disappointingly short of expectations.