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The Business of College Basketball’s Signature Courts

Replacing a basketball playing surface is rarely quick and often expensive.

Author

Steve Ulrich
November 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

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NOVEMBER 11, 2025 | composed by STEVE ULRICH
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1. The Business of College Basketball’s Signature Courts

Timken Gym, College of Wooster

“The original basketball court design at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena is one of the most iconic playing surfaces in sports. The brainchild of legendary Nike shoe designer Tinker Hatfield, it featured a perimeter of brown-hued trees extending inward to form a halo-like shape at center court—an homage to the 1939 national championship Oregon basketball squad known as “The Tall Firs.”

The design is also one of the most polarizing. Hatfield says the court was instrumental in cementing Oregon’s identity as “a little flashier and a little more out there,” but it also drew mixed reviews over the years, with the most common complaint being that the brown coloring made games hard to follow on television.

Court design is a meticulous, sometimes grueling, process. It’s an alchemy of manufacturing, design, and logistics—which keeps the industry quite small. Replacing a basketball playing surface is also rarely quick and often expensive. But the right court—like Oregon’s—can quickly become iconic, and even become an economic and recruiting boon.”

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