Grip Spritz is back on the road!

This past weekend one half of the Grip Spritz team traveled out to Saratoga Spring, New York for the state wide athletic directors meetings!

While it obviously is the end of the high school basketball season, there is no event we love more than conferences for athletic administrators. 

Athletic directors are in charge of the school's budget and are constantly looking to save their schools money. 

Thankfully for us, they are all very familiar with the sticky pads that have come before us! Every coach knows how quick the traction on the court from those fades but not every coach knows what just a seasons worth of sticky sheets is costing the school.

Through enough complaints from players and coaches, these athletic directors know they don't work and they know they're paying way too much! The Grip Spritz booth is always a crowd favorite amongst these events.

No matter if it's a coaches clinic or these larger scale athletic director shows, the questions we get are all pretty similar:

1. How does it work?
2. How's it different than SlippNott?
3. Do I have to wash it?
4. How much does it cost?
5. Where have you been my whole career?

The last question is always funny but there can be a serious tone to it sometimes!

It's nice to have a competitor who has been around for so long and a staple of the sport in so many gym's across the country. It gives us a great way to show what's different and know they already know what they dislike about previous products.

1. How does it work: Grip Spritz is as easy to use as any other courtside basketball traction mat players and coaches have used. Set it next to the bench or at the scorer's table. Before the game, get your shoes ready to go, reapply as needed.
2. How's it different than SlippNott: First, when it comes to setting up, we don't make you peel off sheets, attach it to the board and clear out air bubbles. Just set our Grip Spritz Traction Mat down, pour a half ounce of our solution onto the scrub side, and you're ready to go. Second, once the game gets going, you don't need to worry about our traction pad. When you step on those old sticky pads, they use an adhesive to remove whatever debris are on the bottom of your basketball shoes. Over time, a residue builds up. (They recommend periodically scrubbing things down with alcohol. Alcohol is extremely harmful to rubber, so the shoes. But, I digress!) That residue is just a magnet for whatever is still on those uncleaned courts. Every few possessions, players are back at the table looking to get more grip on their sneakers. Coaches are trying to focus on coaching but now they're peeling off sticky sheets, looking for somewhere to throw them, over and over. Players can accidently tear off multiple sheets at once and they are super expensive. Grip Spritz uses no adhesives. We help make the shoes grippy, not sticky! By rehydrating the rubber on the soles of the basketball shoes they don't pick up whatever dust or dirt is on the court! It's just good grip, all game long.
3. Do I have to wash it: No! When we go to these events, we bring one of our traction mats so every can try it. We bring our oldest one. They try it out, step on the court, and are blown away. Little do they know, they're using the same one we've used at dozens of shows, tournaments, camps, etc. that thousands of people have used and it works just the same as the first time. It feels no different and looks no different, but there is definitely a reason we don't make them white!
4. How much does it cost: This is usually what prompts question number 5! Schools have gotten familiar with spending $300, $400 sometimes even more for a new board and replacement sticky sheets for the season. Our goal was to allow schools to get both their boy's and girl's teams each a Grip Spritz Traction Mat for less than just one, single sticky pad. Schools can do that for just $250! Each program gets a traction pad and three bottles of Grip Spritz (about 96 games worth) for their freshmen, JV, and Varsity teams.
5. Where have we been their whole career: We wish around but all that matters is we met now! It is awesome to see every headache or annoyance they name about sticky pads disappear in real time as we talk! Coaches should be able to focus on coaching. Players should be able to take the court without worrying about traction or injury. Athletic Directors shouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars to still have annoyed coaches and players.

When we first got started with out 'traction in a bottle' for individual players, we had so many coaches and AD's ask about how we could make this work for a team and we really weren't sure what the answer was.

Truth be told, they created their own answer. We just listened to what they complained about and made sure we could fix all of those in whatever we came up with!

The answer became our courtside traction mat that they all love now! They're able to thank themselves as much as they thank us!

This is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of our travel this year! The next few weekends take us to athletic director shows in Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia. We hope we can run into you out there! Always nice to run into someone who's familiar with us!