Courts
Court colors, heat and glare: what the color chip does not tell you
How court color affects surface temperature, glare, ball visibility and wear, with the pairings that work best in Northeast Ohio sun.
Carl J. Gedeon, president, Industrial Surface
Color is the decision owners enjoy, and the one with the most hidden consequences. The chip shows seventeen colors. It does not show that the dark ones can run 30 degrees hotter than the light ones in July, that some of them hide a ball and some hide dirt, or that the lines you choose today are the lines you squint at in August dusk for the next six years. Here is what the chip does not say.
Heat
A surface's temperature in the sun depends mostly on how much light it reflects, and the trade measures that with the solar reflectance index, SRI: higher reflects more and runs cooler. SportMaster prints the index on its chip for the lighter colors, and the numbers are worth knowing: Ice Blue 62, Brite Red 62, Sandstone 46, Red 36, Dove Gray 33, Light Green 31. Anything at 29 or above earns a LEED heat-island credit for a non-roof surface, which some public projects now ask for. The dark greens, the blues, Maroon, Tournament Purple and Black carry no figure, which tells you where they sit: on a July afternoon a dark court can be too hot to touch while a Sandstone surround beside it is merely warm.
Heat is a comfort problem for the players and an aging problem for the surface. The acrylic binder breaks down faster at higher temperatures, so a dark court chalks and wears before a lighter one in the same sun. That is the first reason we put the dark color inside the lines, where the game is, and a lighter one on the surround, where the players stand between points and the court takes the most sun across the most area.
Seeing the ball
A yellow tennis ball shows best against blue and the darker greens; that is most of why the US Open went to blue inside and green outside in 2005 and why half the park courts in the country followed. A pickleball, yellow or green, wants a blue court. A basketball, orange, wants anything but orange or red inside the lines, which is why the red goes on the apron. Light colors inside the lines make the ball harder to track and show every mark; very dark colors make the lines hard to find at dusk and run hot. Medium-dark inside, light outside, is the pairing that wins on every count.
Glare
Light surrounds reflect more light up into the players' eyes, which is the one argument against them, and why Dove Gray and Sandstone are better surround colors than white-adjacent ones. A court facing east-west, which it should not, has a glare problem no color fixes.
Lines
White on blue or green, always, for the host sport. Second-sport lines in a color two shades from the court: Light Blue on green, Yellow or Dove Gray on blue, pale gray on red or purple. Never two whites, never black. A line color too close to the court color disappears at dusk; too close to white confuses the games. The blended lines article shows the pairings on real courts.
Dirt, algae, leaves
Light colors show dirt and tire marks; dark colors hide them and show chalking instead. Shaded courts grow algae, which is green and vanishes on a green surround until it is slick, and shows on a gray or sand one in time to be washed. A court under trees does better in a surround color that tells on the algae.
School colors
Purple, maroon and red courts are asked for and we build them, with the color inside the lines and a neutral gray outside so the dark color is confined to the playing area. Avon's purple courts on the project page are the version to look at: the color reads from the stands and the surround keeps the pad from cooking. Tournament Purple and Orange are higher-cost pigments and Orange may need an extra coat; custom blends from the Fusion range cost more again.
The pairings we recommend
- Blue inside, Dark Green or Light Green outside: the standard, and the best for seeing a tennis ball.
- Dark Green inside, Light Green outside: the club look, forgiving of shade and leaves.
- Blue inside, Ice Blue or Light Blue outside: modern, and the coolest surround on the chip.
- Blue inside, Brite Red or Red apron: for basketball, visible from across a park.
- A school color inside, Dove Gray or Gray outside: the color where it counts, the heat where it does not.
The color page has the chip and swatches of each pairing, and SportMaster's online court designer lets you try them on a court before we bring the sample board to the site walk.