Since 1891 - The Oldest Name in Sports Flooring
Historically gym flooring has been wood. Not just any wood, but hard maple or sugar maple, species: Acer saccharum. This wood has a Janka hardness of almost 1400 making one of the hardest, most dent resistant woods available.
Communities across the country see the high school gymnasium as the place where most sporting events happen. It is also a place to vote, or gather for graduation. In short it is the community’s social hub, so its important to choose the right flooring for this space.
Wood flooring systems for gymnasiums provide designers with an almost unlimited number of options to customize the floor and meet the exact needs of the customer. Wood floors today always include an under structure. Because of this, dozens of performance metrics can be tuned for the specific use and specific users. For instance: The floor’s resiliency can be adjusted for 180 pound collegiate athletes or 65 pound grade schoolers. Doing this provides a floor that is both safer and more enjoyable to play on. In addition, the floor can be made to handle roll-out bleachers on the perimeter, and still be optimized in the play area.
This under structure inherent with wood floors also means that wood floors can include options like volleyball post anchors, power plugs and other enhancements.
Talk to your planner about wood floors for your gym. Then have them contact us for information on how Horner Sports Flooring can make sure that your new gym flooring meets all your requirements and expectations.
There a number of synthetic floor systems used in gymnasiums, but the most common one is poured polyurethane. These systems are a more budget friendly system and in some cases provide a superior surface. For instance, polyurethane floors are great for Pickleball, as shown above. Another great use for polyurethane systems is badminton and tennis courts.
A popular design, known as a hybrid, uses both wood and rubber or polyurethane in the same space to derive the benefits of both. Here is a space that uses Horner’s Olymp-X flooting for the tack and maple for the basketball courts.
Early construction practices in this country used wood for just about everything. Unlike today, wood floors were ubiquitous. School class rooms had wood floors, not tile or vinyl. In fact, every floor surface in a school was wood, with one exception, restrooms were normally ceramic tile. Gymnasiums had wood flooring as well.
Early in the 20th century, schools began to use tile (sometimes asbestos tile) for classrooms, restrooms and other areas like the cafeteria. However, the gymnasium floor continued to be wood. It is likely tile was tried in gyms, and found to be unacceptable for all the reasons wood is used. Wood is forgiving when someone falls and creates less fatigue. The finish on a wood floor provides superior traction or grip to the players and wood provides a clear surface where game lines can be easily seen.
Basketball was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith to keep students at his school active and possibly to keep football players in shape during the winter months. It was mostly played indoors in school gyms, as it is today. Because these gymnasiums had wood floors, floors for basketball continue to be wood flooring.
As the game of basketball developed into a national pastime, equipment for the game evolved. The ball became purpose made, the “hoops”, even shoes were designed and engineered specifically for the game. The floor was no exception.
These floors have become engineering marvels. National and international governing bodies have strict performance guidelines and testing agencies to ensure the floors meet or exceed their standards for top tier levels of competition. Flooring manufacturers have risen to the challenge and today produce the safest, highest performing basketball floors ever made. Today, companies like Horner Sports Flooring, have developed multi-stag resilient floors, high performance portable floors, and low profile floors that meet or exceed DIN, PUR, FIBA and other standards.
Horner Sports Flooring continues to perfect the basketball floor. With advancements in active resiliency, low gloss finish, and progressive locking, Horner stands at the forefront of basketball floor development.
The USA Basketball Showcase Tournament drew huge crowds ahead of the Paris Olympics in late July.
USA Basketball is the governing body for basketball in the US, much like FIBA is in Europe. The Showcase offered National Teams, from different countries, an opportunity to play each other ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
The games took place at The O2 in London and The Etihad in Abu Dhabi. Both locations competed on a Horner Sports Flooring, world class, ProKing® floor.
Horner Sports Flooring’s ProKing portable basketball courts are easily trucked domestically and fit neatly into shipping containers for international shipping. ProKing floors are used and shipped around the world for professional teams, collegiate teams and special events. Its rugged design and time tested, proven ability to get the job done has made ProKing the go-to portable floor for events, contests and competition, domestically and internationally.
For more than a decade, Horner Sports Flooring has been the supplier of the NBA Summer League floors. Held at the Thomas and Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, each year, Summer League has become the primier summer basketball event. This year is no different.
As in the past, this year’s NBA Summer League floors have the clean, classic styling fans love to see. The large, red, white and blue 2025 NBA Summer League logo dominates center court, as it has for years. The floor is bordered in red with white text, as usual. Play area graphics have been limited to a darkened area inside the three point line, with the key reverting back to natural. The play area is beautifully devoid of sponsor ads and other distractions.
Make no mistake, Horner Sports Flooring has the ability to lay down cutting edge graphics, but as we can see here, sometimes, the discipline to keep it simple can really pay off.
Below the understated graphics is a world class, Horner Sports Flooring, ProKing® portable basketball floor. The ProKing® basketball floor is used by professional and collegiate teams nation and world wide. The ProKing® floor boasts the lightest panels in the business and the fastest load in/load out times available. These ProKing floors are trucked from the Horner factory/mill, game ready. Within 2 hrs. of arrival, the floor can be ready for competition.
If you have questions about Horner Sports Flooring or ProKing portable basketball courts, contact us below.
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