The Head of People Operations opened the conversation not with a specification sheet but with a data point: "Our attrition numbers show that employees who engage with even one on-campus activity stay 30% longer than those who don't. We have the land. We need to give people a reason to use it."
The land in question was 10,000 sqft at the rear of the campus — used, until that conversation, as overflow parking on event days and an informal shortcut the rest of the time. Within eight months, it was a multi-sport complex hosting a fortnightly inter-department basketball league, two badminton courts booked solid from 6pm to 9pm on weekdays, and a "Wellness Wednesday" programme that HR was citing in recruitment materials.
Surface Colours
The Challenge
A corporate wellness facility is not simply a sports court with a company logo on it. The requirements are different. The surface has to handle heavy, varied use across multiple shifts — morning sessions before 9am, lunch-hour games, and post-work play until 9pm under artificial lighting. It has to look professional on Day 1 and hold that appearance through months of continuous use. And it has to be built without disrupting the campus operations happening around it every day.
The site itself — the former parking overflow — had a decent concrete base across most of its footprint, but years of vehicle load had created a network of micro-cracks and two sections of real surface degradation near what had been the entry/exit zone. Full demolition would have added three weeks and significant cost. Applying surface-only treatment on a cracked base would have shown visible defects within months.
The third issue was the dual sport marking requirement on the basketball court. The company wanted the central 7,200 sqft court to function as a full FIBA basketball court but also carry badminton court markings for informal play during peak hours when the dedicated badminton courts were already occupied. Multiple sport line systems on one surface need a specific approach — lines must be readable without creating visual confusion during active play.
The Solution
The base assessment confirmed 80% of the existing concrete was structurally sound. Rather than full demolition, we specified selective base repair — crack routing and filling across the micro-crack network, and fresh M20 PCC poured only at the two degraded zones. This approach saved approximately twelve days and a significant portion of base cost, while delivering a base that was uniform and warranty-covered across the entire footprint.
The surface specification.
Royal Blue 8-layer acrylic on the full FIBA basketball court zone (7,200 sqft), with Grey on the surrounding run-off perimeter. Both badminton courts carry a Grey base with Grass Green accent panels marking the court zones — visually distinct from the basketball surface without needing a different surface system. All three courts use the same 8-layer acrylic system. No mismatched warranty or maintenance requirements anywhere on campus.
Dual sport line markings on the basketball court were applied in two passes: FIBA basketball lines in white as the primary system, badminton lines in yellow as secondary. Players on both sports reported zero confusion during actual play — the line weight and colour difference is enough to read intuitively.
LED lighting was outside the ChampCourts scope — the company's facilities team had their own electrical contractor for the twelve floodlight poles being installed at the same time. The coordination was straightforward: pole foundation pits were dug before our base repair work started, set clear of the court surface zones, so the electrical team could pour their foundations while our crew was on the acrylic application phase. No interference, no schedule conflict.
The Build
The Result
The facility opened to employees in the first week after handover. The first "Wellness Wednesday" — a company-organised badminton round-robin — drew 40 participants. By week six, the post-work slots on all three courts were being booked through the internal facilities app, with the 6pm to 7pm window the most contested. More than 200 employees were using the courts regularly within the first three months.
The inter-department basketball league that HR launched in month two became the most-subscribed internal activity programme the company had ever run. Twelve departments fielded teams. The league finals — held on a Saturday on the company's own court — drew employees who had never attended a single company-organised event before.
The People Operations function tracked a 15% reduction in sick leave in the twelve months after the facility opened, against the same period the year before. HR was careful to call it a correlation, not causation — employee wellness data is always multi-factorial. But the direction was clear. As the facilities director put it directly: "The ROI case closed itself within six months."
We built this facility expecting a fraction of the campus to use it. Within three months it was the most-used amenity we have. "Wellness Wednesday" is now in the employee handbook. The courts paid for themselves in a way we can actually measure.
— Chief People Officer