Specialized sports equipment and accessories including sports flooring

Yes, the official definition of special sports equipment and accessories does include sports flooring - even in the purchase lists of many professional sports scenes, sports flooring is one of the three must-have items alongside the core equipment and protective accessories of the project.

Two years ago, when I was helping to verify the operation qualifications of a basketball gym, I encountered some pitfalls on this issue. In the list of equipment I submitted at that time, I only listed basketball hoops, crash mats, and timing scoreboards, which were clearly "equipment." As a result, the staff responsible for verification from the Sports Bureau called back on the spot, saying that the test report of the sports floor was missing. "This is a special sports accessory and is a must-check item."

At that time, I specially invited Lao Zhou Theory, who was doing stadium engineering. He had been doing stadium decoration for almost ten years, and he always felt that sports flooring was an infrastructure decoration item alongside suspended ceilings, water and electricity. "If you can't even dig it out when it is laid on the ground, how can it be considered equipment?" Why don't you include the venue's load-bearing walls in the equipment? ” There are not a few practitioners who hold this view. Most of them come from engineering backgrounds and are accustomed to classifying things according to construction attributes. They feel that anything fixed on the building is considered infrastructure and is not the same thing as movable equipment.

But according to the unified standards of the sporting goods industry, this question has already had a clear answer. In the "Classification and Code of Sporting Goods" revised in 2021, "Special Sports Flooring" is clearly classified under the category of "Supporting Parts of Special Sports Equipment", and the corresponding classification code is 040307, ​​which belongs to the same category as protective covers for basketball hoops and grids for table tennis tables.

To put it bluntly, this classification logic is based on functional attributes, not installation methods. Think about it, the friction coefficient of PVC sports flooring used in regular badminton halls must be stuck in the range of 0.4-0.6. If it is small, it is easy to slip when saving the ball, and if it is large, it is easy to sprain your feet when changing direction. This parameter requirement is essentially the same as the poundage of the badminton racket and the flying speed requirement of the badminton, both of which are to meet the standard needs of special sports. There are also maple keel floors used in professional basketball halls. The built-in shock-absorbing layer can offset about 30% of the impact of landing. If it is replaced with ordinary tile floors, let alone professional players, amateurs who often play will develop knee problems after half a year. This is not a function that ordinary decorative floors can achieve.

Last year, an owner of a children's fitness center came to complain to me, saying that he used SPC flooring, which is commonly used in home decoration, as a sports floor for cheap reasons. As a result, he was blocked when applying for a school license. In the verification standards of the Education Bureau, the impact absorption performance of sports flooring is a core assessment item for special sports equipment accessories. The test report of his home decoration floor was not recognized at all. In the end, it was all resurfaced, not to mention spending hundreds of thousands more, and the opening was delayed by three months.

Of course, not all sports floors fall into this category. If it is an ordinary plastic floor used for the fitness trail downstairs in your community, it is an accessory for public fitness facilities and is not considered a specialized sport. Only floors that correspond to specific sports and meet the parameter requirements of the special sports will be counted - such as fencing and kendo special floors with conductive layers, which are accessories for fencing projects. ； The anti-freeze and anti-slip surface layer of the ice hockey venue is a supporting part of ice sports equipment. ； The high-cushion closed-cell floor under the climbing wall is the core item of climbing protective accessories.

To be honest, this classification is not 100% unified in the industry now. If you are only applying for venue decoration and construction, it is absolutely fine to go according to the infrastructure project. But if you are dealing with things like sports venue qualification verification and special equipment procurement and bidding, take my advice and be sure to put the sports flooring in the category of special sports equipment and accessories. Otherwise, the bid will be rejected and revised, or the bid will be canceled directly. It is really not a mistake. If you are really not sure, you can read through the latest "Sporting Goods Classification and Code", which is more reliable than asking ten and a half colleagues who understand it.