Sports Flooring - July 2009

By Brian Hamilton

Sports flooring is a relatively small but lucrative and growing niche in the floorcovering industry that has probably suffered less in the economic downturn than other products because many of the projects now underway were approved and funded more than a year ago, before the recession hit full steam. Many of those projects are also being built by public or non profit entities, such as schools, churches and governments. However, the major players in this industry see softer sales ahead as projects that would have been funded now get put on the back burner.

In general, though, the industry is growing. The synthetic turf business is growing anywhere from 15% to 20% per year just in athletic fields, which means it’s doubling every four or five years, and it’s probably the fastest growing segment of sports flooring.

The sports flooring segment also depends heavily on internal research and development. Floors have to allow athletes to perform without hurting themselves, which means cutting, jumping, running, starting and stopping, to varying degrees, depending on the sport. They’re designed for shock absorption, “ball bounce,” deflection and other factors that affect muscles and joints. A flooring designed for racquetball, for example, doesn’t need as much shock absorption as a basketball court. Much like the development of athletic shoes, the basic sports floor of 20 years ago has morphed into a wide variety of specialty floors with a whole host of features.

While the green attributes of some sports flooring are open for debate, the industry is one of the largest users of recycled tire rubber.

Most sports flooring is specified through architects, designers and facilities managers, although in many cases a local coach can have a huge impact on the specific choice of flooring.

SYNTHETIC TURF
When synthetic turf was first invented back in the 1960s, “AstroTurf” was little more than short pile nylon carpet and pad installed over a concrete slab, much like outdoor carpet. It was hard, caused injuries like rug burns and turf toe, and altered play on the field, although its popularity grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in professional sports arenas. Baseball fans can remember when outfielders had to make plays differently to keep the ball from bouncing over their heads. Many of those fields were eventually replaced with natural grass in the 1990s. However, in the 1980s, a new generation of turf was developed by FieldTurf (now part of Tarkett) and the momentum now appears to be shifting back to synthetic turf. Ten years ago, according to the Synthetic Turf Council in Atlanta, Georgia, there were seven of these newer “in-fill” turf fields installed in this country. Now there are more than 4,500, with about 1,000 being added annually. Nearly all synthetic turf used in this country is manufactured in Georgia. The industry is dominated by half a dozen fairly large players, with about 15 much smaller firms, and many of them are located in Dalton, Georgia. However, manufacturers say this year the market is up only slightly from last year.

Today’s synthetic turf, which is essentially a tufted carpet, is a dramatic improvement over the original AstroTurf. One sales executive said it’s like the difference between videotape and Blu-Ray technology. It’s a tufted monofilament polyethylene product in which green fibers about 2 ” long made to look like blades of grass are attached to a polypropylene backing.

Several turf firms use proprietary backing systems, held together with urethane adhesives. Sprinturf uses Stabilon, and AstroTurf uses BioCel, a product developed by Universal Textile Technologies that contains soybean based polyol and recycled content totaling about 70% by weight. Propex is a major domestic supplier, with more than 15 polypropylene backings in differing widths that it sells to about ten different turf companies. It’s also investing in research and development in this niche to design products specifically for turf, although it believes 2009 will likely be a flat year for sales.

The infill, say manufacturers, is the most important feature because it determines how closely the synthetic field matches a natural field. An infill, usually a combination of sand and “crumb” rubber from ground up tires, makes the blades stand up and provides cushioning for the athletes. The ratio of sand to rubber varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but one firm, Fairmount Minerals, has developed rubber coated sand, which it calls the next generation of synthetic turf infill. Italian firm Limonta Sport has come up with an infill made of coconut fibers and cork.

The turf composite is installed over a complex drainage field composed of layers of aggregate and drainage pipes. Like the installation of the turf, the drainage system requires expert installers.

Synthetic turf fields have a number of advantages over natural grass, which are propelling its growth—along with a few disadvantages. One major factor is that a synthetic turf field can take the place of several natural grass fields because they can be played on continuously—drainage isn’t a problem even in heavy rain—and they don’t need to rest between uses, unlike a typical grass field. This can be a huge advantage for a municipality that uses its fields to generate revenue. Another advantage is how quickly they can be installed compared to waiting for a new field to grow and get established. Although its initial cost can be nearly double that of a natural grass field—about $1.36 million versus $690,000, according to the New York Department of Parks and Recreation, the largest municipal user of synthetic fields in the country—long term maintenance costs can make up the difference in a hurry, at least according to the manufacturers, who quote a payback time of three to seven years. A typical synthetic field is projected to have a life of about ten years or a little longer, compared to the five year lifespan of a grass field. The field never has to be mowed, fertilized, or irrigated. The fact that it doesn’t need irrigation is helping drive sales in the Southwest, where there are many water restrictions in place.

However, the New York Parks Department says the average difference in annual cost over the lifespan of the fields is about $14,700. This can, however, help a school district that might find it easier to obtain capital funds than to boost its operating budget.

Also, the fields tend to get very hot in direct sunlight, as much as 60 degrees hotter than a grass field, largely the result of the ground up black tire rubber. Body fluids and other contaminants that would disappear in the grass have to be cleaned manually. And perhaps the biggest disadvantage is they have to be replaced, which means the old field has to be disposed of, and generally that’s in a landfill at a cost of more than $150,000. But manufacturers are working on end-of-life solutions to this problem.

Artificial turf is a mixed bag when compared to natural grass in terms of sustainability. On the plus side, according to the Synthetic Turf Council, the industry uses about 8% to 9% of all waste tires each year for infill, and an average soccer field could used as many as 27,000. In theory, the rubber in the infill could be used in other applications like asphalt when a field is replaced, or burned for energy, but it generally isn’t. The turf requires no water, which minimizes the use of a natural resource that’s scarce in many areas of the country, although many artificial fields require the installation of misters to cool them down in hot weather. A Texas A&M study concluded that some natural fields could require as much as 1.5 million gallons of water per acre annually. Synthetic turf doesn’t have to be mowed, which keeps fumes out of the air and minimizes use of gasoline, and there’s no fertilizer runoff to worry about.

On the downside, however, is the fact that it’s an oil based product that requires a fair amount of energy to produce. Although some products can be recycled, generally they aren’t. And, unlike grass, artificial turf doesn’t sequester carbon.

FieldTurf Tarkett, headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia, is the largest synthetic turf firm in the world, with over 3,000 fields installed worldwide, including football, soccer and baseball fields. Although more than 40 major universities have installed a FieldTurf field, along with 21 NFL teams, the firm’s greatest growth is with high schools and parks departments. Most of it is in new fields, with a few replacements.

FieldTurf Tarkett is one of the few companies in the synthetic turf industry to own and operate its own manufacturing plant, a 110,000 square foot facility in Calhoun, Georgia that can turn out 600,000 square feet per day, enough for 3,000 fields per year, based on a 75,000 square foot field.

FieldTurf offers three fiber options and touts the higher amount of sand in its infill for creating a superior product. It uses seven pounds of silica sand and three pounds of recycled rubber per square foot, which it says is about three times more total infill than most of its competitors. Consequently, its products are more expensive than the competition, at about $4.75 per square foot, about $1 more than other products. It also sews its fields together, which it says is superior to adhesives.

Textile Management Associates, owner of the AstroTurf brand, has an exclusive development and marketing arrangement with General Sports Venue. It’s vertically integrated, producing all of the components, from yarn to backing, in facilities in Alabama and Georgia. It offers several different kinds of products that feature different kinds of infill. It offers a reduced-infill product (that in some cases requires no infill at all), as well as one that is entirely infilled with rubber, which it recommends over a sand and rubber infill, though it sells that, too.

Last fall, Michigan State University presented a study comparing 16 synthetic turfs and determined that AstroTurf’s Game Day Grass 3D product, with an all rubber infill, most closely resembled the performance of a real grass field.

Italian firm Mondo, more widely known for its track and field surfaces, has a thriving international synthetic turf business, which well known in the international soccer world. It has about 800 installations worldwide. However, it’s a relative newcomer in the U.S., where its first installation was in 2002.

Mondo says that one advantage of its turf is that it uses an engineered thermoplastic rubber infill, rather than ground up tires, along with sand, because testing shows that it has the biomechanics of a natural field and can help eliminate certain kinds of injuries. In addition, it’s supposed to stay cooler than a typical infill. Its turf also includes a porous underlayment constructed of ground tire rubber. That enables the use of a shorter fiber and less infill.

Next year, the company will begin a recycling program, in which it will use old turf to make new synthetic turf.

SPECIALTY SPORTS FLOORS
Rubber, vinyl, and poured floors are all in the mix for other athletic interior flooring, which can be found in everything from recreation centers to corporate fitness centers to elementary school multi-purpose rooms. Much of this kind of flooring is specified by architects, although building owners and operators are also in the mix. Modular flooring, most of it rubber, has also become an affordable option and more desirable than VCT, coming in 10”, 12” and 18” tiles. In addition, modular installations can be permanent or temporary, and in some cases they provide a wide variety of color options. Some firms specialize in renting out temporary floors.

Much of this specialty flooring can also contribute to LEED points in a number of categories, from indoor air quality to recycled content.

According to vinyl specialist Gerflor, there are about 50 million square feet of this specialty flooring sold annually, for total sales of roughly $400 million. In the U.S. about 60% of Gerflor’s sales are in sports flooring. About two-thirds is replacement and one-third new construction.

Gerflor products end up in volleyball, table tennis, and badminton competition venues, but K-12 education is its largest segment, partly because of the prevalence of multi-purpose rooms that are for everything from dodgeball to school assemblies. Its primary brand is Taraflex, a roll product with a foam backing that has many different variations with different performance characteristics, depending on the use. It’s a very low maintenance product that requires little more than regular mopping. Taraflex is manufactured in France and is inventoried in the U.S.

Gerflor hopes that it can blunt any softness next year with its fairly new specialty products for tennis, team handball, and other sports.

Ecore International, formerly Dodge Regupol, markets Everlast sports surfacing for weight rooms, training rooms, gyms and other specialty areas. It’s used in the gyms in all Hilton and Marriott hotels. It comes in both rolls and 2’ tiles and up to 55 colors. Like its flagship product, EcoSurfaces, it’s made of recycled tire rubber and the firm claims it is the largest user of scrap tire rubber in the U.S. Its products also use recycled rubber from Nike athletic shoes. Everlast is generally specified and sold through distribution. It comes in three thicknesses for different applications. Ecore is also in the synthetic turf business, marketing its ATurf.

Sister companies Roppe and Flexco both sell Tuflex rubber flooring for sports applications ranging from fitness and cardio areas to locker rooms and ice arenas. The companies say that Tuflex, composed mostly of recycled rubber, is the only resilient flooring whose component parts are vulcanized together. It comes in 24” and 27” inch tiles, all 3/8” thick. The flooring can be coordinated with wallbase, treads and other accessories.

Mondo also sells rubber sports flooring, which is designed for auxiliary gymnasiums and multi-purpose areas. It’s essentially layers of rubber attached to a foam backing and is available in sheets of varying width, depending on the specific product.