ASB has become a leader in Squash Court manufacturing and has maintained this position for decades, including mid-2000s introduction of a new glass-based surface and glass enclosure, which becomes the standard for Squash competitions worldwide.
Christof joined the company to succeed his father as Director General in 2012, and ASB began concentrating on LED surfaces. The first such product was a simple floor screen called “ASB Multisports”, which could switch between markings for various hardware sports such as basketball, volleyball and handball. By 2015 the company also developed “ASB Lumiflex”, the Fuller LED Display Court I Dribbble across in Orlando.
The company changed focus to obtain official approval from Fiba, the world’s ruling basketball body, while the Covid-19 pandemic, and was successful in 2022, when FIBA changed the rules for official permissible game surfaces to include glass in addition to traditional wood. ASB’s first official FIBA event was the Under-19 World Cup in 2023.
Recent customer facilities include European basketball teams Bayern Munich and Panathinaikos, both of which played all their home games during the 2024-25 season in ASB courts; NBA All-Star Weekend 2024 in Indiana, which used ASB for several events including the Dunk and three-point competitions; the “Big Blue Madness” event of the University of Kentucky in 2024; plus several other professional and college teams or facilities through multiple sports.
Business and boasting opportunities abound with this technology, which opens the yard as a massive empty canvas. Some time, the surface appears as well as a traditional parking lot playing surface, with realistic pictures of wooden panels. Suddenly, however, it can be transformed into something else.
When free throws are shot during a basketball game, for example, most players tend to spend 45 to 60 seconds standing on one side of the yard. ASB customers can use the available space on the other side of the floor for, for example, to show a graph on the free-throw percentage of the shooter-with the logo of an accompanying brand partner right next to it.
“This surface allowed us to completely reimagini as we connect with fans and how we deliver value to our trading partners,” Thanos Bichtas, head of marketing for Panathinaikos, tells me in an email. “Whether it’s dynamic intro with custom court animations, or live visual effects that react to great plays, we now offer a level of visual storytelling that transforms the arena into an interactive experience.
Bichtas says the court has become a high effective platform for brand visibility. “And importantly, it doesn’t interfere with the fan experience; it improves it.”
An endless connection, an indoor football connection with teams from Germany and Italy, uses the glass surface to suck the action. Photo courtesy of asb -glass
Tiny exercises
On my visit, I was shown a set of children’s activities that could make these courts into educational hubs during school hours, from various scale depictions of dinosaurs and sea creatures to a feature that lets children draw labyrinths. Bichtas says that Panathinaikos has already used his ASB court to host a few events, from Mark -activities to basketball chart clinics for fans -especially more. Christof, a Go-card enthusiast, envisages an entire race arrangement on one of the ASB courts soon.
“If you look at the arena infrastructure, it costs somewhere around 250 to 350 million euros,” Babinsky says. “If you enter our floor, that’s only about 1 percent more of the total budget. But having that floor from there will allow you to use the arena much more often, because suddenly you don’t have an arena used for a home game every second week. No, you can have kids there on Monday morning.”
