INNOVATION ASTROTURF® SPORTGROUP It’S All About Performance Sportgroup Is Today’S True Global Sports Surfacing Giant, with Manufacturing Facilities Around the World
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TRADITION MEETS INNOVATION ASTROTURF® SPORTGROUP It’s all about performance SportGroup is today’s true global sports surfacing giant, with manufacturing facilities around the world. Active in HISTORY IN over 70 countries, SportGroup has installed more than 13,000 artificial turf fields and 16,000 running tracks. SportGroup was created by selective acquisitions of the THE MAKING leading turf, track, indoor and outdoor sports surface manufacturers. This amalgamation of innovation and technology also includes the manufacturers and marketers of key raw It’s been fifty plus years since the 1966 installation of materials used in all aspects of the sports surfacing AstroTurf at the Houston Astrodome. industry. AstroTurf is now in the enviable position of enjoying a Fifty years of history, as true champions return to glory. completely vertical and fully integrated environment, On the sports field or inside the plant that creates it, talent, where all of its ideas can be brought to life in a market hungry for innovation. determination and perseverance deliver results. Every real success story starts with big dreams and ambition – and ends Welcome to the next with talent and perseverance. But continuity and longevity are dependent upon one thing – the ability to adapt and improve as time marches on. generation. The second half of the AstroTurf century. Baseball is so much more than Baseball is as American as, well, baseball. Along with hot dogs, ballparks and being America’s pastime - baseball is a game to us. It’s a passion. so much more than a game to us. It’s a passion. And there is a lot of history. Many years of R&D are behind the making of AstroTurf’s Diamond Series, today’s premier baseball surface. AstroTurf’s RootZone® technology was the answer to providing a fast and natural ball bounce. A full range of fibers, fiber heights, infills and pads were tested to deliver optimum performance. Today, Diamond Series handles ball bounce exactly like a natural grass field in every area of performance - outfield, infield and base paths. And this can be custom tailored to any coach or facility specifications for speed or bounce. AstroTurf powered by SportGroup | 2 | | 3 | In his struggle to meet the criteria that the ardent TRADITION baseball purists set before him, Matthew left no base unturned. He studied how the ball interacts with the surface. Firing blasts of baseballs from MEETS INNOVATION every angle into every part of the infield, base paths and outfield, he measured the trajectory and speed of the ball from every path and under every condition. He spent years studying the results that the best natural fields produced and went about a long and arduous process to Aside from the latest technology behind the replicate it. success of Diamond Series, there are also some Armed with a degree in Textile and Fiber very special people that were at the very heart of Engineering from Georgia Tech, Matthew spent its invention. thousands of hours researching how to deliver a natural bounce that replicates grass and clay - and how clay reacts with metal cleats. How runners dig, takeoff, hold up and slide – into every base and under every scenario. In the end, it was the magical combination of multiple plies of nylon and polyurethane fibers that Matthew perfected to replicate clay performance. It was not really a miracle, since his methodology combined with hard work, was the only way to get there. But it was a miraculous discovery. And it made all the difference. The steel-like durability of nylon allowed the turf to survive the beating of metal cleats and harsh contact. While the combination of fibers provided realistic sliding distances. Meet Matthew Boggs, truly one of the most passionate baseball Coaches and professionals who originally professionals you’ll ever get to know and one of the key people behind thought it would be impossible to duplicate the success of the Diamond Series. the grass and clay surfaces of a natural baseball field, were astounded by the results. Thanks to From a family of ballplayers, Matthew was one of the premier leadoff Matthew’s dedication and commitment, today hitters in all of college baseball and an ACC Honor Roll student four the AstroTurf Diamond Series is as well known straight years. From Georgia Tech he went on to a highly respected among baseball’s elite as it is by major colleges, career as assistant coach, first at Tulane and then at Duke, where he high schools and municipalities across the fielded Duke’s first ACC Tournament team. country. | 4 | | 5 | ASTROTURF®S PRODUCT LINEUP GEM INFIELD AND OUTFIELD GRASS ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND BLEND OPS ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND BLEND RBI PROPRIETARY FIBERS AND ROOTZONE TECHNOLOGY, SO TURF PLAYS LIKE REAL CLAY CLAY AREAS Our proprietary “i-fiber”, the hallmark of the RootZone Diamond-i turf system, is ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND-i OPS specifically designed to lay over quickly and thereby replicate clay. AstroTurf is It’s all about ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND-i RBI the only manufacturer to incorporate nylon, providing realistic sliding distances and enhanced durability in these high wear areas of the baseball diamond. Our RootZone technology encapsulates the infill, and as a result drastically reduces the bounce. the “infill kick-out” and divots seen on other synthetic fields. That makes for more natural hops. PITCHER’S MOUND, A FULL RANGE OF FIBERS AND PILE HEIGHTS The Diamond Series is a family To cater to the coach’s preferred speed of play, the Diamond Series offers two BATTERS’ AND sets of pile heights. Depending on the system chosen, clay turf systems are of products tailored to mimic 3/8” – 1/2” shorter than synthetic infield grass systems in order to replicate the differences found on a natural turf field. As a result, our RootZone Diamond-i the performance of each area CATCHERS’ BOXES products play like real clay, and our RootZone Diamond Blend products play like ◆ EXTRA RESILIENCE AREA (ERA) TURF real grass. of the baseball field. A TRULY CUSTOMIZED APPROACH Each area of the baseball field has a different infill recipe to support the natural playability. At installation, we start with baseline infill ratios of (usually) sand Outfield, infield, base paths, and rubber. These ratios have been developed over the course of the last 8 WARNING TRACK years as we installed 80% of the Division I synthetic baseball fields. The truth, pitcher’s mound, batters’ though, is that no two baseball fields are the same. We tune the infill rates of our ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND-i OPS Diamond Series fields to provide just the right amount of speed and ball bounce. boxes and warning tracks are ◆ ROOTZONE DIAMOND-i RBI INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE BENEFITS each surfaced with unique The most abused areas on synthetic sports fields are pitching mounds and batters’ boxes. To combat that wear, AstroTurf offers the Extra Resilience Area AstroTurf products designed (ERA) turf system, which affords about eight times as much wear resistance as normal turf. And when it does come time to replace the batters’ and catchers’ specifically to replicate natural BASEBALL VELCRO PANELS boxes, it’s a pretty easy process. Installed with a Velcro system, you can peel them up and replace them with one of the eight replacement sets that come field playability. All baseball fields are sold with eight preassembled, with every field. Velcro-adhered sets of batters’ and catchers’ boxes for easy, DIY replacement of these high wear areas. | 6 | | 7 | HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE AstroTurf® Diamond Series baseball fields play and look so natural, yet provide the easy maintenance and exceptional durability we’ve become famous for over many years. Since our Vanderbilt University - Nashville, TN Wake Forest University - Winston-Salem, NC Virginia Tech University - Blacksburg, VA first collegiate stadium installation at Wichita State in the summer of 2009, we have installed more NCAA Division I baseball fields than all other turf manufacturers – combined! Some of our Division I Installations include: American Athletic Conference: Big East Conference: Pac-12 Conference: Tulane University St. John’s University Washington State University Wichita State University Wichita State University - Wichita, KS The Ohio State University - Columbus, OH Duke University - Durham, NC Big South Conference: Southeastern Conference: Atlantic 10 Conference: Campbell University University of Kentucky St. Joseph’s University Liberty University Vanderbilt University University of Richmond University of Missouri Colonial Athletic Association: Atlantic Coast Conference: James Madison University Southland Conference: Boston College University of Delaware Abilene Christian University Duke University Northwestern State University Virginia Tech Sam Houston State University Conference USA: Wake Forest University Southeastern Louisiana Western Kentucky University Clemson University Practice Field Sun Belt Conference: Mid-American Conference: Big 10 Conference: Troy University Ball State University Kansas State University - Manhattan, KS Indiana University - Bloomington, IN Long Island University Brooklyn - Brooklyn, NY Indiana University University of Louisiana at Lafayette Eastern Michigan University Northwestern University The Ohio State University The Summit League: University of Iowa Missouri Valley Conference: Oral Roberts University University of Michigan Dallas Baptist University Southern Illinois University West Coast Conference: Big 12 Conference: University of Portland Kansas State University Northeast Conference: University of San Francisco University of Kansas Long Island