Grip Spritz has gone international!

We have always seen a decent amount of orders heading north to Canada, but this weekend we had an opportunity to dive even deeper into that market. Grip Spritz joined the Canadian Interscholastic Association of Athletic Administrators (CIAAA) in Vancouver, British Columbia!

Much like the states, every year athletic directors from all over that respective state join in one place to learn how to better serve and impact their student-athletes. In December. While we were in Nashville for the nationwide United States athletic directors’ event, we were approached by a group who represented Canada and their show!  

Basketball is continually growing north of the border and we know dusty courts are universal.

This show was a bit different for us than most though. Most athletic directors and basketball coaches are familiar with the sticky pads. It’s easy for us to explain how Grip Spritz is different, what it does to the shoes that makes it last a full game and finally, how it way less expensive.

In Canada, that wasn’t always the case. There were a lot less attendees who were familiar with sticky pads. Some were, and the responses were what we were used to but for those who weren’t, it was like seeing a whole new world!

For those who currently use sticky pads for their basketball shoes, the conversations were the same. How is this different? How long will it last? Will it harm my court? How much does it cost? When can I buy one?!

For those that didn’t know what the idea was all about, we were able to go a lot deeper into how it works.

Rather than masking the shoes with an adhesive mess that just causes more dust and dirt to collect on the basketball shoes after a few possessions, we’re rehydrating the rubber so the shoes grip the court, regardless of dust or dirt.

How is Grip Spritz different than the sticky pads? Our courtside traction mats use no adhesives, which makes all the difference! If you step on something sticky, then you go on a dusty, dirty court, and your basketball shoes become magnets for all that debris. That’s why every few possessions, the coach is tearing off another sticky sheet, or worse, a player is accidentally peeling off 5 or 6 at a time.

We always joke that we want your basketball shoes to be grippy, not sticky! This leads to the second question.

How long will Grip Spritz last? As said, adhesives are the reason players constantly want a new sheet. Nothing is stopping the basketball shoes from picking up more dust, it’s encouraging it. Lots of coaches and players are used to a few possessions before needing to redo it. With Grip Spritz, players will have that traction for a full game. This comes from rehydrating the rubber soles of the basketball shoes instead of masking them with stickiness.

Will it harm my court? Absolutely not. That was one of the main issues we wanted to take care of. Schools take pride in their court and we had to make sure we wouldn’t be leaving any residue on the shoes or the court!

How much does it cost? Schools are constantly worried about their budget. We knew that and wanted to help however we could. It’s expensive to maintain quality courts with how many activities take place on those basketball courts. Gym classes, assemblies, tons of stuff.

Sticky pads have seemed to grow more and more expensive each year and the same goes for the replacement sticky sheets you need to buy multiple times a season. Our goal for athletic directors was to make sure the boys’ and girls’ basketball programs could each get a Grip Spritz Courtside Traction Pad for less than the cost of just one sticky pad. We were able to do that!

One of our traction mats is $134.95 or our ‘School Bundle’ for $269.95, which is two kits and 64 more games/practices worth of Grip Spritz Solution for free.

By comparison, a small sticky mat is $180, and another $80 for enough sticky sheets for a season. The large sticky mat is over $300 and another $130 for a sufficient amount of sheets.

The athletic directors also taught us something about our basketball traction mat that we hadn’t even realized ourselves!

We know that coaches would prefer to not be responsible for peeling off sticky sheets while they’re trying to coach and finding somewhere to throw them during the game, which inevitably needs to be cleaned up later.

They also mentioned how they loved the sustainability of our product compared to the sticky mats. We have almost eliminated plastic from the equation and created a reusable solution. We’ll have to do some math on how much plastic we are cutting out over the course of the year!

 We are already looking forward to next year, this market is so untapped and we know how quickly basketball is growing in Canada!