Making March Madness: How a Michigan firm builds Final Four courts

Connor Sports, based in the Upper Peninsula, makes the basketball courts used during the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments
The company has also made flooring used in NBA facilities, Olympics venues and Division I schools
The floors take about a month to complete and can be reused every year or sold to winning teams

Starting next week, millions of fans will tune in to watch their favorite college basketball teams compete for national titles during the NCAA Tournament.

Even if Michigan teams don’t make the Final Four, the state will still have a presence on college basketball’s biggest stage.

For the past 20 years, Connor Sports, a portable and permanent hardwood sports flooring company located in the Upper Peninsula, has supplied the NCAA with many of the courts used during March Madness.

This year will be no different: From the First Four to the Final Four, Connor Sports will provide several of the courts used for both men’s and women’s tournaments.

The company has a manufacturing facility in Crystal Falls, near the Wisconsin border in Iron County, and its work extends across the country and world. It has provided courts for more than a dozen NBA and WNBA teams, several colleges and past Summer Olympics in Brazil and Japan.

In Michigan, its floors are installed in the practice facility for the Detroit Pistons and in recreation centers at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Northern Michigan University.

All of the wood the company uses to make the shiny maple floors is sourced from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Canada.

Connor Sports then constructs what it calls “quicklock fusion” court pieces that can be disassembled, transported and reassembled like a puzzle at their final destinations.

Bridge Michigan spoke with Zach Riberdy, marketing director for Connor Sports, about how the UP company went from making furniture to creating the court that is seen by millions every single year.

Questions and answers were edited for clarity.

How did Connor Sports become the official vendor for the NCAA?

Our partnership started back in 2006. We always had a relationship with several NCAA schools around the country. When the tournament started to take off and get bigger and bigger, we had conversations with a sister company of ours that was helping out the NCAA with the volleyball courts, to do the same thing with basketball as well. They liked the idea of having a single source provider for the tournament and we were able to get involved in the 2006 men’s Final Four. That quickly turned into the men’s and women’s Final Four tournament and then it just blossomed from there.

How many courts do you make for the NCAA March Madness tournaments?

As of today, Connor Sports provides the flooring used in the First Four men’s games in Dayton, Ohio. Then, the first and second round games for the regional tournaments and then the men’s Final Four. On the men’s side, we provide a total of 14 courts. For the women’s tournament, we provide the flooring for the regional and Final Four tournaments.

2024 Final Four court — UConn players celebrate after the second half of the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game against Purdue, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (Brynn Anderson/Associated Press)

How are the courts transported to each city?

All of our courts are kept in storage until about two to three months prior to the tournaments starting. Then, we reassemble all of the courts and make any necessary corrections, like if a panel has a little bit of damage done to it. Once the courts are repainted and ready to go, we provide a report to the NCAA.

Then, we take them all apart and put them on pallets. The pallets are then loaded onto trucks and then the courts are shipped all across the country to wherever they need to go for that round.

How long does it take to build each court?

It all depends on the location and the round that it’s going to. We always save the men’s and women’s Final Four for last. Usually, the first and second round floors for the men’s tournament will be completed and ready to go at the end of January. The regional floors for the men’s and women’s tournaments begin in January and conclude in February. The courts for the Final Four and all of the other ones get started in February and are completed by the beginning of March.

What happens to the floor after March Madness is over?

The first thing is, after the tournament’s concluded, the court is broken down and put on pallets and loaded back on a truck and then sent back to one of our storage warehouses. During that time, we offer the floor for sale to the winning team of the Final Four. Last year, the floor was offered to the men’s team at the University of Florida and the women’s team at the University of Connecticut.

If the floor is not purchased, then we reuse it for the following year but it gets brand new graphics on it so, no two lines are the exact same going into the next year’s tournament.

The NCAA owns all of the first-round floors, so those are reused year after year. The floors for the regional tournament and Final Four get rebuilt every two or three years. But some years are different. This year, the men’s Final Four floor is 100% brand new and one of the floors for the women’s regional tournament is new.