Who knew basketball needed an interactive LED floor?
ASB became a leader in the manufacturing industry of squash courts and maintained this position for decades, including the introduction of new glass-based surfaces and glass enclosure setups that will become standard for squash competitions around the world.
Christophe joined the company in 2012 to take over his father as CEO, and ASB began focusing on the LED surface. The first such product was a simple floor display called “ASB Multisports” which allows you to switch markings for various hard court sports such as basketball, volleyball, and handball. By 2015, the company also developed the “ASB Lumiflex.”
The company shifted its focus to obtaining official approval from the global governing basketball group FIBA during the Covid-19 pandemic, and succeeded in 2022 when FIBA changed the rules for official tolerance surfaces, including glass in addition to traditional wood. ASB’s first official FIBA event was the 2023 Under-19 Women’s World Cup.
Recent client installations include European basketball teams Bayern Munich and Panatinaikos. NBA All-Star Weekend 2024 in Indiana used ASB for several events, including dunk contests and 3-point contests. The 2024 University of Kentucky’s “Big Blue Madness” event. Additionally, several other professional and university teams or facilities across multiple sports.
The opportunities for commercial and fan engagement are flooded with this technology, which opens the courts as a massive blank canvas. Sometimes the surface looks like a traditional parquet competitive surface with realistic images of wood paneling. But suddenly, it could transform into something else.
For example, when a free throw is filmed during a basketball game, most players tend to spend 45-60 seconds on one side of the court. ASB clients can use the available space on the other side of the floor to display graphics on the free throw rate of, for example, a shooter game.
“This surface has allowed us to completely rethink how we connect with our fans and how we can deliver value to our commercial partners,” says Thanos Bichtas, Head of Marketing at Panathinaikos, via email. “Whether it’s a dynamic intro with custom court animation or a live visual effect that responds to big plays, it offers a level of visual storytelling that turns the arena into an interactive experience.
Bichtas said the court has become an influential platform for brand visibility. “And importantly, it doesn’t disrupt the fan experience. It enhances it.”
The Infinity League, an indoor soccer league with German and Italian teams, utilizes glass surfaces to juice the action. The photo is courtesy of ASB Glassfloor
Floor exercises
On my visit I was shown a series of children’s activities that could turn these courts into educational hubs during school hours, from renderings of different scales of dinosaurs and sea creatures to the ability to design mazes for children to run mazes. According to Bichtas, Panathinaikos has already used ASB courts to host many events, from brand activations to fans’ basketball skills clinics, especially fans’ basketball skills clinics. Go-kart enthusiast Christophe is hoping to set up the entire racetrack at one of the ASB courts in the near future.
“If you look at the infrastructure in the arena, it costs around 25-350 million euros,” Babinsky says. “If we put our floor there, that’s about 1% or more of our overall budget. But having that floor there allows us to use the arena more often. Suddenly, there’s no arena used for home games every two weeks.