Speaking of grip: the players particularly liked the fact that the many advertising stickers on the floor of the glass floor would no longer be necessary in the future due to the LED technology. They pose a constant danger of slipping and cause serious injuries time and again.
Athletic Coach Lindner: “I am very positively surprised”
Bleck’s Crailsheim team-mate Bogdan “Boggy” Radosavljević also raved about the glass floor afterwards: “I wouldn’t have thought it was of such high quality and felt so good. The thing has grip, dribbling feels the same. The floor is elastic, so it’s easy on the knees and hips. I like the glass floor. There’s something very sensible coming. I hope this technology will come to us in Germany at some point.”
Experienced Crailsheim athletic trainer Marcus Lindner also had nothing but good things to say about overstraining. Every day, the professionals have to answer a wellbeing questionnaire in which they are asked about their current functional status. “I am very positively surprised. All the players feel well. There were no deviations from games on parquet flooring when we look at the most important body regions and joints in terms of pain,” said Lindner after evaluating the data.
“Opportunities for multiple uses and marketing are enormous”
There was only positive feedback from the losing team as well. “Something new is always a bit strange and you have to get used to it first. But the first impression is very positive. The floor is extremely non-slip,” said Till-Joscha Jönke of the Tübingen Tigers. His teammate and Austrian national player Erol Ersek saw it similarly: “The floor is a bit softer, which I found very pleasant. And the grip is incredible, I didn’t slip away at all. This floor is a good innovation for basketball.”
The glass floor was also well received by the officials of both clubs. “I was critical of the idea,” Martin Romig admitted openly. “But my reservations have been reduced by quite a bit. We had a very good exchange with ASB GlassFloor and it was very interesting to understand the technical background. When you get into it, many things become clearer,” said the managing director of HAKRO Merlins from Crailsheim. His counterpart Jascha Maus on the Tübingen side was also very satisfied. “That was a great experience. Once you get over the little settling-in period, it’s a floor like any other and it felt very good. The boys have had nothing but positive things to say. The possibilities in popular sport for multiple use or in the professional sector for marketing are enormous beyond that.”
The floor is also ideally suited for wheelchair basketball. After extensive tests by the top team Pilatus Dragons and the coach of the Swiss national wheelchair basketball team Nicolas Hausammann, the European Wheelchair Basketball Federation (EWBF) already allowed official games on the sports floor made of glass by ASB GlassFloor at the end of 2020.
No-compromise sports floor for the athletes
Currently, two glass floors, ASB MultiSports and ASB LumiFlex by ASB GlassFloor have been approved by FIBA’s Equipment & Venue Centre. The former is a glass sports floor with LED marking lines underneath, while the LumiFlex floor is a full-LED video floor that offers completely new possibilities in training and match operations. For example, interactive training applications can be realised in conjunction with a tracking system and, in match operations, special performances by athletes can be highlighted for visitors during the match. In this way, the playing surface enables new ways of marketing.