How to Clean the Bottom of Your Basketball Shoes - 2025

When the bottom of your basketball shoes are dirty, they become slippery! Most gyms don't clean their courts enough, leading to the soles of your basketball shoes picking up dust, dirt, and debris which can cause slips. It's tough to play your best when your shoes don't have grip and it can increase your chances of injury.

How Do I Clean the Bottom of My Basketball Shoes?

Cleaning the soles of your basketball shoes is super easy! Here are 3 ways to clean the bottom of your sneakers, an easy way, a wrong way, and the best way!

1. The Easy Way

Take water and clean off the soles of your basketball shoes after each time you play. This won't last very long, but you will have noticeably better grip for a few minutes! Your shoes will pick up more dust from the court quickly, but it's a better option than not doing anything!

2. The Wrong Way

This technique has become increasingly popular with basketball players. It's cleaning the soles of the shoes with hand sanitizer or hair spray. This is cleaning the shoes just as well as water would but the downside is the alcohol in the products. Rubber and alcohol do not mix! Alcohol will dry out the rubber soles and deteriorate them. These provide a short-term fix but a more serious long-term problem since it ruins the basketball shoes.

3. The Best Way

Grip Spritz is formulated and designed specifically for this problem! It's a 2 in 1 spray that cleans the bottom of the basketball shoes while rejuvenating the rubber sole, allowing it to be grippy. It lasts about a game, so it's more effective than water without all the harmful chemicals in hand sanitizer.

If you need to clean the bottom of your basketball shoes so they have better traction on dusty courts, this is the route for you!