Photo courtesy of Nemaha Sports Construction two hours( often less than 30 minutes), at a time and labor savings of 90 percent.
Autonomous devices employ GPS technology to do the job, using the field’ s coordinates to drive along the grass and leave accurate lines of paint to create yard lines, hash marks, numbers and everything in between. Not only are fields marked quickly but staff members can be redistributed to other, more pressing tasks.
To stay within their budgets, school districts, recreation departments, sports parks and others are pooling their funds to purchase these types of equipment, and simply trading it back and forth as needed.
Photo courtesy of the Clark Companies
RENOVATING SYNTHETIC FIELDS If the field under consideration for renovation is synthetic, a few options can help lower the cost of the upgrade:
Reuse of the field base, if it is structurally sound
Reuse of the irrigation system, if it will perform well with the new surface
Recovery and reuse of the shock pad or e-layer
Removal and reuse of the infill in the new field
Selling or donating the old surface, rather than having it trucked to a landfill.
As field managers increasingly find themselves navigating a landscape that includes funding cuts and slimmer budgets, the need for creative cost-saving solutions will continue.
Additionally, many inexpensive systems are manufactured outside of the country( where there are low product manufacturing standards) and may not offer the buyer any customer support if problems are encountered. A better choice is a domestically manufactured sports-specific system that is backed by a reputable company with references from users who can speak to the customer service experience before, during and after installation.
Other technologies are proving to be a sound investment as well. For example, robotic field painters can mark all lines easily and precisely in less than
Mary Helen Sprecher wrote this article on behalf of the American Sports Builders Association( ASBA). Need more information? ASBA’ s website( www. sportsbuilders. org) has resources to help. The Find A Member feature on the site allows for easy lookup of builders, design professionals and suppliers in the industry.
20 SportsField Management | December 2025 sportsfieldmanagementonline. com