Installation areas
Pole Pad and Wall Pad Installation in New York
New York is one of the few places where our own crews do the work instead of shipping a box. That changes the conversation: instead of talking about fitting instructions, we talk about your freight elevator window, your certificate of insurance and the week your gym is actually empty.
- 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.
Where our New York crews work, and how they get in the door
Our crews dispatch from Closter, New Jersey, a few minutes from the George Washington Bridge and the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Rockland, Westchester and the Bronx are a short drive. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island sit on a normal day route. Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess and Ulster get scheduled as full days so a crew arrives with the right hardware instead of making a second trip.
In New York, access decides the schedule more than the pad count does. A 12 pad job in a Nassau County middle school with a ground level door is a morning. The same 12 pads in a Manhattan building with one freight elevator, a 9am to 11am delivery window and a managing agent who wants a certificate of insurance in hand first is a different job entirely. Tell us the access rules when you ask for the quote, not after the PO is cut.
The facility mix here is unusually wide: PSAL and district gyms, parochial and yeshiva gymnasiums, CUNY and SUNY athletic buildings, town recreation centers across Nassau and Suffolk, parks department basketball and tennis courts, indoor turf and training facilities, and co-op and condo play areas in Westchester and Rockland. Each has its own gatekeeper, and each one wants something different in writing before a crew shows up.
- Certificate of insurance naming the building owner and managing agent, sent before the date is booked
- Freight elevator reservations and dock windows in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn buildings
- Security desk sign-in, photo ID and vendor badge rules at school and campus gyms
- Gate or key access at fenced parks department courts that are locked outside program hours
- Curb restrictions and no standing zones, which decide how far pads get hand carried
How New York facilities actually buy this
Most of the delay on a New York order is paperwork, not production. Public school districts and municipalities are exempt on an official purchase order. Nonprofit organizations, parishes and yeshivas use their exempt organization certificate, Form ST-119.1. Send whichever applies with the order, because once an invoice goes out with sales tax on it, fixing it takes longer than issuing it correctly the first time.
Thresholds matter for anything larger than a few posts. New York General Municipal Law Section 103 currently sets competitive bidding at $20,000 for purchase contracts, and most single gym padding orders land comfortably under it, which means your district's own quote policy governs. Confirm the current figure and your internal policy with your business office. Districts that would rather skip the quote exercise entirely often buy through a BOCES cooperative or a piggyback contract instead.
Co-op and condo boards are the other common buyer, and they run on a different clock. Boards approve at a meeting, so we quote line by line: pad model, quantity, color, install labor and freight broken out separately, so a manager can drop the numbers straight into a board packet or a reserve study without rebuilding the math.
- Government purchase orders from districts and municipalities, no tax
- Form ST-119.1 from nonprofits, parishes and independent schools
- BOCES cooperative and piggyback contracts as an alternative to running quotes
- W-9, vendor registration and COI on file before a PO can be cut
- Itemized quotes built for board packets and reserve studies
What New York conditions do to pads, and what old gyms do to sizing
Outdoor pads in this region take a genuine beating. Freeze and thaw cycles work moisture into any unsealed seam, road salt and plow spray hit poles along parking edges and court perimeters, and salt air off the South Shore, the North Fork and the Sound adds a steady corrosion load. Summer piles UV and humidity on top of it. That is why we ask where a pad will live before we quote a vinyl weight, since a rooftop play deck in Queens and an indoor gym in Yonkers are not the same order.
Older New York buildings create the other surprise. Pre-war and mid-century gyms frequently have steel columns standing inside the sideline, radiators and pipe chases running behind the wall line, and posts that were never true to begin with. Several are already wrapped in decades old padding that has to come off before anything gets measured. Measure the bare post, and follow how to measure a square or round post before you order, because there is no standard post size to fall back on.
- Freeze and thaw drives moisture into unsealed seams on outdoor pads
- Road salt and plow spray reach poles along parking edges and court perimeters
- Salt air on the South Shore, the North Fork and the Sound adds corrosion load
- Steel columns inside the sideline are common in pre-war and mid-century gyms
- Strip existing padding first, then measure the bare post, never over the old wrap
Specs, logos, prices and lead times
New York high school play runs under NYSPHSAA, which follows NFHS playing rules, and PSAL gyms in the city get looked at on the same terms. The numbers inspectors ask about are consistent: at least 3 feet of unobstructed space outside basketball boundaries with 10 feet preferred, portable backstop bases padded to 7 feet on the court-side surface, and a 9 foot backboard support padded 2 feet back from the backboard face. Bring us the measurement and we build to it. NCAA basketball padding is a recommendation rather than a mandate, while NCAA softball Rule 2.15 requires padded hard-material backstops starting 1 January 2027, which matters for the SUNY and CUNY programs planning ahead.
Vinyl weights, foam construction and what ASTM F2440 and ASTM E84 actually measure are covered in full on our materials page, and we do not claim our pads are certified to F2440. If a New York spec asks for documented test data, ask us early and we will tell you what we can and cannot document. School logos and district wordmarks follow the artwork and proof requirements for custom printed pole pads, and printed orders always run longer than stock because a proof has to come back approved.
Pricing starts with the post. The FT75 pad for 4 inch and 5 inch square posts starts at $254. The FT78 6x6 pad starts at $307, and the FT79 adds a gusset at $402. For 6x8 posts, the FT80P pad-only starts at $291 and the FT80 pad and gusset starts at $436. Base and gusset pads, the FT77, start at $146. Wall pads come in 2 ft x 6 ft and 2 ft x 8 ft as standard with custom sizes on request, at $152 for foam-only panels and $172 for plywood-backed. Custom printing starts at $373.99 and a decal with application starts at $119.99. All pads carry a 1-Year Limited Warranty. Call 917-546-4625 or 877-466-7101, or email sales@mybackyardsports.com with your post measurements and the week your gym is free.
- NFHS and NYSPHSAA: 3 feet minimum unobstructed space outside basketball boundaries, 10 feet preferred
- Portable backstop bases padded to 7 feet on the court-side surface
- A 9 foot backboard support padded 2 feet back from the backboard face
- NCAA softball Rule 2.15 requires padded hard-material backstops from 1 January 2027
- Sixteen stock colors including Navy Blue, Royal Blue, Scarlet, Maroon, Kelly Green and Columbia Blue
Keep reading
Do you install pole pads in all five boroughs?
Yes. Crews cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, along with Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and the Hudson Valley counties. The first thing to tell us is not the pad count, it is the building: dock or elevator access, the delivery window, the certificate of insurance your managing agent requires, and who signs the crew in at the desk. We schedule around those limits rather than around the drive time.
What about Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse?
Our install crews are concentrated downstate and in the Hudson Valley, so an upstate district usually receives the same pads as a shipped order with fitting instructions instead of a scheduled crew visit. Ask us about crew availability farther north before you assume either way, because it depends on the size of the job and what else is booked that week.
How does a New York school district or nonprofit avoid paying sales tax?
Public districts and municipalities are exempt on an official purchase order. Nonprofits, parishes and independent schools send their exempt organization certificate, Form ST-119.1. Send it with the order rather than after invoicing. For larger jobs, check General Municipal Law Section 103 thresholds and your own procurement policy with your business office, or buy through a BOCES cooperative contract to skip the quote process.
When is the best time to schedule an install without disrupting our season?
Summer recess is the easiest window and also the busiest one, so downstate gyms book it early. Winter and spring recess weeks work well for single gym jobs, and evenings or weekends work in facilities where security staffing allows it. Outdoor park courts are best done in the shoulder seasons, since we would rather not set hardware on a frozen or salted surface in January.
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