Industries
Pole Pads and Wall Pads for Universities
Your athletics identity is governed by a style guide. Your padding is governed by a specification. The two rarely arrive on the same purchase order, and they almost never have the same approver. We quote both together, in writing, in a format your buyer can attach to a requisition without rewriting it first.
- Shipping
- All 48 contiguous states.
- Installation by our own crews
- New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, eastern Pennsylvania, plus the Austin and Houston markets in Texas. Coverage detail
Outside our installation markets we ship the product for installation by you or your contractor. Coverage states are New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, eastern Pennsylvania, the Austin and Houston metros in Texas.
The Brand Office Signs Off Too
Most padding buyers pick a color they like. You cannot. Your athletics mark and your color values live in a style guide that someone in marketing or licensing enforces, and padding installed in a recruit-facing venue falls under it. A pad that reads slightly off from the floor logo will get flagged, and it will get flagged after it is mounted and after the invoice is paid.
So we settle color before we settle price. Our 16 stock vinyl colors include Scarlet, Maroon, Kelly Green, Forest Green, Columbia Blue, Royal Blue, Navy Blue, Purple, Gold and Desert Gold, which covers a large share of collegiate palettes. Send the color page from your style guide and we will name the honest stock match or tell you plainly that stock will not hold up next to your floor. If your guide specifies a licensed mark rather than a flat color, the job becomes a printed one, and the file and proof requirements are spelled out on the custom printed pole pads page.
The approval trap on a campus is not artwork, it is routing. Athletics can approve a look. Licensing approves the mark. On many campuses those are different offices with different queues, and a proof that sits in an athletics inbox for three weeks is a proof nobody outside athletics has actually seen. Name your approver at quote time and copy them on the proof, not after it comes back.
- Send the style guide color page with printed values, not a screenshot of the athletics website
- Stock vinyl is the faster and cheaper route whenever your palette allows it
- Printed pads are the route for wordmarks, secondary marks and exact brand color
- Identify the licensing approver before proofing, not after the proof is issued
- Ask whether your venue signage rules restrict marks on padding at floor level
You Write Specifications, You Do Not Shop
Facilities and athletics departments at four-year institutions do not add to cart. Someone writes a spec, purchasing runs it, and the response has to answer that spec on its own terms. That is a different document than a product page, so ask us for it directly rather than forwarding a link to your buyer.
Here is what we will and will not put in writing. We do not claim ASTM F2440 certification or compliance, and we will not sign a bid response that implies it. If a spec writer on your campus copied a compliance line out of a competitor catalog, flag it before the bid closes, because it will disqualify honest bidders and reward the ones willing to overstate. Foam, vinyl weight and fire rating language are explained on the materials and construction page, and padding carries a 1-Year Limited Warranty. Send us your spec language and we will confirm, line by line, what we can actually document.
The rest of the delay is paperwork, not product. Vendor registration portals, a W-9, a certificate of insurance and your tax exemption letter are the items that stall a small order for two weeks after the award. Ask for all of it at quote time while the file is open.
- Ask for a written quote with line items, freight and lead time broken out separately
- Confirm your bid threshold before you split an order across venues and trigger a formal solicitation
- Get vendor registration and insurance paperwork moving at quote stage, not at PO stage
- Ask us to answer spec language directly instead of attaching a catalog page
- Confirm how long the quote holds if your requisition has to clear a committee
Multiple Venues, One Order, Different Posts
A single institution rarely has one padding problem. It has a main arena, an auxiliary gym, a recreation center reporting to a different director, an outdoor tennis complex and a softball facility. The posts are not the same, the budgets are not the same, and the person who notices the torn pad is usually not the person who can buy a new one. Inventory all of it once, then decide what goes on this year's requisition and what waits, because freight on one consolidated order beats freight on four small ones and the index codes can still be split at billing.
Measure every venue rather than assuming a campus standard exists, since a 1960s field house and a 2015 rec center were built to different structures; the four-side and circumference method is on the measuring guide. Weight the vinyl to the venue rather than to the order, because an open-access rec center post absorbs far more contact than an arena baseline standard, and the weight tiers explain what each one buys. Long runs behind baselines and along multipurpose court walls are a separate product from post covers, laid out on the gym wall padding page.
Governing body language matters here, because the question usually arrives from a coach or a conference walkthrough rather than from purchasing. NCAA basketball treats padding as a recommendation, not a mandate, which is why practice varies so widely between institutions and why a visiting official can comment on your gym without anything being out of compliance. NCAA softball Rule 2.15 is different: padding of hard-material backstops becomes a requirement effective 1 January 2027, so softball has a real calendar attached and belongs in a budget cycle now rather than in a summer scramble later.
- FT75 pole pad for 4 in and 5 in square posts from $254
- FT78 6x6 pole pad from $307; FT80 6x8 pad and gusset from $436
- FT77 base and gusset pad from $146 for exposed footings and bracing
- Wall pads 2 ft x 6 ft and 2 ft x 8 ft, foam-only from $152, plywood-backed from $172
- Custom wall pad sizes for column faces, odd bays and non-standard runs
Summer Is Shorter Than Your Calendar Says
Campus work happens between commencement and move-in, and that window gets eaten by floor refinishing, HVAC, whatever the capital project team scheduled first, and the youth camps renting your gyms in July. Padding is small money on a large calendar, which is exactly why it gets ordered last and lands after the fall recruiting visit it was bought for.
Two campus-specific dates decide this. The first is your fiscal year close, which at many institutions falls on 30 June and quietly freezes requisitions for weeks on either side of it. The second is staffing: the brand office and purchasing both run thin in July, so an approval that takes two days in March takes two weeks in midsummer. Stock items generally ship in 2 to 3 business days, but printed items add proof and approval time on top of production, and on a campus that approval is a signature from someone outside athletics.
Start the artwork and color conversation in spring if you are targeting an August visit schedule. To open a quote, email sales@mybackyardsports.com with quantities, post measurements and colors, or call 917-546-4625, toll free 877-466-7101.
Can you match our official brand colors exactly?
Our 16 stock vinyl colors cover most collegiate palettes and ship fastest, but stock vinyl is a dyed material, not a printed one, so it will not hit a specific printed value on demand. If your style guide names a value we cannot match in stock, custom printed pads reproduce brand color and marks far more precisely. Send the guide page and we will tell you honestly which route matches closer next to your floor.
Do your pads meet ASTM F2440?
We do not claim certification or compliance, and we will not sign a bid response that implies it. Tell us the exact language your specification uses and we will confirm in writing what we can and cannot document for it. The standard itself, including what its impact attenuation limits mean and how mounting height factors in, is explained on our materials and construction page.
Do we need a specialty crew to put these up?
Pole pads close with full-length hook and loop, so campus facilities staff or your athletics operations crew can mount and remove them without a contractor, which also matters at the end of the season when pads come off for a commencement floor cover. Plywood-backed wall panels are the harder job, because fasteners have to land in blocking or a solid substrate, so walk the wall with your trades before the pads arrive.
How do we get pricing into a requisition?
Email sales@mybackyardsports.com with quantities, post measurements and colors, or call 917-546-4625. We return a written quote with line items, freight and lead time broken out, so your buyer can attach it to a requisition without rewriting anything. If your office needs the quote formatted to answer a specific spec section, say so and we will answer it in that order.
Start a quote
Send us the
measurements.
Tell us the post size or the wall run, the colors you need, and whether it lives indoors or out. You will get a written quote back with a real lead time on it.
- A written lead time on every quote
- Purchase orders and W9 on request
- A proof before anything is cut