Los Angeles Clippers fans are being wowed this season by the bells and whistles in the team’s new $2 billion home, the Intuit Dome. They can watch replays on the world’s largest double-sided scoreboard, sit in a 51-row section reserved for die-hard supporters and buy a jersey in the 5,000-square-foot team store.
But for all of that, most of their attention will be focused on the court, whose construction is a tale all on its own.
It begins 2,200 miles away from Los Angeles, in the tiny mill town of Amasa, Mich. There, Connor Sports, one of the leading makers of hardwood courts, spent about a year procuring trees and building the court, a process that involved dozens of logs, hundreds of workers and thousands of hours. At the company’s plant amid the forests of the Upper Peninsula, workers traversing a maze of conveyors, saws and other machinery dried, cut, planed and shaved strips of wood during the two 10-hour shifts that run six days a week.
The company builds about 800 courts a year, with most of them destined for high school gymnasiums and recreational centers in all 50 states and beyond. Almost all are made with northern hard maple, a dense, durable wood harvested from forests above the 35th parallel, a standard set by the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association, an industry group whose members make most of the hardwood floors in the United States.
Connor also makes some of the country’s most iconic courts, including those used in the N.B.A. and by many major college basketball programs. Each consists of about 250 4-by-7-foot interlocking panels with subfloors attached for shock absorption and stability. Called portables, they can be assembled and broken down in a few hours so arena operators can quickly stage other events like hockey games and concerts.
“This job has taken me all over the world, including a 30,000-square-foot installation in Azerbaijan,” said Jason Gasperich, the technical director at Connor Sports. “Some overseas customers know if it’s good enough for the N.B.A., it’s good enough for them.”
Demand for hardwood courts, which are also used for sports like volleyball, has been relatively stable over the past decade. Floors last 30 to 40 years, though sometimes far longer, but schools are always being built and courts are replaced when damaged. Portable courts have shorter lives because they absorb more wear and tear; the N.B.A. requires that its courts be replaced at least every 10 years.
The pandemic upended the market as school districts slashed budgets and projects were delayed. Demand has started to recover, but companies in the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association, which includes Connor, shipped 19.4 million square feet of flooring last year, 17.8 percent less than they did in 2019. Supply chain bottlenecks have eased, but contractors are overwhelmed with orders to install courts.
Prices vary widely, but a 60-by-120-foot N.B.A.-size portable court can cost up to $250,000, depending on the finish, while a permanent court is about half as much.
Sales of portable courts are a slice of the market but are growing at a healthy pace. Connor recently signed a five-year extension with the N.C.A.A. to provide courts for the men’s and women’s Regionals and Final Fours. The company also produces about a quarter of the game courts used by N.B.A. teams, with most of the rest made by Robbins Sports Surfaces.
As any basketball fan knows, college and professional courts now feature increasingly elaborate designs. This work is done by finishing companies that sand, paint, laminate and seal floors for Connor and other court makers. As sponsors, logos and color schemes change, courts can be repainted. Most N.B.A. teams have at least two game courts, as well as additional practice courts. Connor has sold the Brooklyn Nets three game courts: a classic look, a retro look and a City Edition floor with a contemporary design. Teams can highlight different sponsor names and logos by using removable vinyl decals around the perimeter of courts, or extra panels, which each weigh about 200 pounds, that are swapped into the interior of the court.
“To the fan, it looks like a brand-new floor, but they just changed the center panels,” said Zach Riberdy, the marketing director at Connor, which employs about 150 people. “About 85 percent of the court is the same.”
Almost all of Connor’s maple-wood courts come from the forests within 100 miles or so of Amasa, a town of about 250 people whose main restaurant is the Sawblade. Connor buys lumber from about 40 sawmills and seeks wood closer to the center of logs that is better for flooring. Most wood is delivered green, dried outdoors for many months, then placed in one of a dozen kilns heated with wood waste from the plant. The time needed to remove most of the wood’s moisture is based on the seasons.
“Every load of wood takes a little bit different amount of time to dry,” Mr. Gasperich said.
Dried lumber is sent to the flooring mill next door. The wood comes in different sizes, so first it is cut to a width of about 2.5 inches. It goes through a planer to create a consistent thickness of roughly an inch (or fifteen-16ths of an inch, to be precise). A machine scans each strip to identify knots and defects, which are marked and removed by cutters, reducing the wood to lengths of one to seven feet. The strips are sent through what’s called a side-matcher machine, which adds grooves and tongues to the long edges of the wood so the strips can dovetail, and planes them one last time. The company’s name and mill number are stamped on the bottom.
An end-matcher machine adds grooves and tongues at the long ends the strips, which then move down a conveyor where workers sort them by grades. The highest two are white or shades of brown but with few blemishes. The lowest grade of wood has deeper coloring with some knots and shades. Strips with cracks or other defects are sent back and trimmed.
“I never expected it to be so chaotic,” said Erica La Bonte, a wood grader who has worked at Connor for 14 years. “But a lot of it becomes habit and you can tell by looking at it.”
To meet specifications by the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association, Amber Emerson checks sample bundles of strips to ensure they are properly graded. If Ms. Emerson finds consistent errors, she will alert an operator, who will recalibrate the machines used. If a bundle has a certain percentage of strips with defects, it is pulled aside.
“When I go and watch my son play basketball, I’m judging the court,” she said.
The strips used in permanent installations are stacked into 19-square-foot bundles, while the portable courts are sent to another section where subfloors are attached. Connor has developed a network of suppliers in the Upper Peninsula that provides various components, including souvenir mini-boards made by Jim Nocerini, a retired wood shop teacher. The subfloors for permanent courts are made in nearby Iron River by Holm Builders, a construction company.
Bucky Holm and his sons, Joe, Nathan and Nick, make 85 types of subfloors with different dimensions, thickness and padding that can affect the bounce of a ball, the give of the floor or the sound of a dribble. Thanks to growing demand, the Holms produce up to 18 subfloors a week, and their factory has quadrupled in size.
“Our No. 1 target is the consistency in the floors,” Nathan Holm said.
After the wood strips are nailed to the subfloors, they are shipped to finishing companies in Ohio and Texas. In June, Ohio Flooring in Shreve, a town in the state’s Amish country, received a portable court from Connor produced for Florida State University. It took two weeks to confirm the exact paint the school wanted. By mid-July, a half-dozen workers in a building the size of an airplane hangar assembled the court next to a portable court being prepared for the Windy City Bulls, a G-League team.
The summer is a busy time because college and professional teams need courts by late summer. Finishing them takes about two weeks, with two days for assembly, two days for sanding and buffing and another day to apply sealant. The second week, the lines, logos and lettering are laid out, then two coats of paint and finish are applied.
The most precise work is done by Jason Irias. He spent most of one day working on the words “Florida State” and “Seminoles,” and the head of a Native American that included a feather.
Completed floors are disassembled and put on drying racks for at least 10 days. On one side of the plant, stacks of panels were waiting to be shipped to DePaul University and other schools.
“If I’m in a sport bar, I’ll tell my wife, ‘Hey, there’s one we did,’” Mr. Irias said. “But we’ve done so many floors, it’s not exciting for her anymore.”
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