Night photography shown is representational. Actual site imagery will be updated upon client approval.
The existing concrete base had been poured by a previous contractor and then abandoned — the project had run out of money, or out of coordination, the RWA was not entirely sure which. What remained on site was 7,200 sqft of cured M20 grade concrete: solid, flat by eye, and missing everything above it. The slab had been sitting unfinished for two years. In that time it had become overflow parking, a bicycle storage area, and — by one resident's labrador — a preferred morning circuit.
The RWA had spoken to two vendors before approaching ChampCourts. The first recommended full demolition — no way to guarantee quality acrylic over concrete that had been exposed and stressed for two years. The second said the slab was fine and they could coat it directly. Both answers were incomplete. Neither vendor had taken a level reading.
ChampCourts brought a laser level. The reading across the 120-foot length of the court showed a 1.8-degree slope — roughly 3.7 feet of elevation difference from one baseline to the other. Not visible to the eye. But significant enough to affect ball bounce, shot angles, and the strain on players who are always running slightly uphill in one direction. The slab was not broken. It just needed a levelling correction before any coating could go on.
The society also had a requirement that no previous contractor had been asked to address: night play. Most residents in this society finish their working day at 6 PM. Morning slots were theoretically available but practically useless for anyone on a standard office schedule. The court needed proper floodlighting — not decorative perimeter bollards, but professional-grade coverage calibrated for basketball. That means uniform lux across the full 7,200 sqft with no shadows in the three-point arc.
"Two years of waiting. Two vendors who never measured anything. And then someone finally turned up with a laser level. That was the moment we knew we had found the right team."
RWA Sports Committee Chairperson, A Residential Society, NoidaThe proposal was straightforward: retain the existing base, correct the slope with an acrylic-modified levelling compound, then apply the full 8-layer acrylic system over the corrected surface. The saving against a demolish-rebuild was Rs 6.48 lakh — the cost of new M20 concrete and GSB sub-base across 7,200 sqft that simply was not needed. The RWA committee approved the proposal the same evening it was presented.
The colour specification was Royal Blue for the main court area and Light Blue for the run-off perimeter and key zones. This two-tone combination does several things at once: it creates a clear visual boundary between court and surround, it looks outstanding under 5000K floodlights (neutral white, which is the right colour temperature for court sports lighting), and it gives the court a professional appearance that photographs well at any time of day or night.
The lighting design was four 200W LED flood arrays on galvanised steel poles at the four corners of the court, aimed inward and downward at angles calculated to give uniform coverage across the full playing surface. The critical challenge in corner-lit setups is the three-point arc — the zone most exposed to shadow on standard four-corner installations. The pole height and flood-head angle here were specified specifically to eliminate that shadow.
The team arrived on Day 1 with the laser level results already converted into a levelling compound pour plan. The slope correction was the first task — the most technically demanding — and everything else depended on getting it right. Until the base was flat, no coating work could begin.
All images are illustrative placeholders. Final installation photographs and night photography pending client approval.
The society's parking areas — which had become the default social gathering spot for working-age residents — quietly became secondary. The court was better. In the first full week of operation, 34 unique residents played at least once. By the third week, the court had a booking request system — not because the RWA set one up, but because residents had worked it out among themselves. Some organisation was needed to ensure fair access to the evening slots.
A kids' weekend coaching programme started in the sixth week, run informally by a resident who had played club basketball in college and had been looking for the right opportunity to pass on the game. Eight children enrolled in the first batch. The RWA provided two basketballs. The coach brought two more. The programme started on Saturday mornings and moved to Sunday as well when Saturday filled up.
The Rs 6.48 lakh saving from retaining and correcting the existing base was reallocated by the RWA committee. Half funded the LED floodlight installation. The other half went into the society's maintenance reserve. The sports committee chairperson noted at the following AGM that the basketball court had returned more in community engagement than any other capital expenditure in the society's recent history. The previous contractor had left a slab. ChampCourts made it a court. The floodlights made it a community.
"We had been looking at that unfinished slab for two years. The question was never whether to build the court — it was whether to trust someone to do it properly. These people measured first. That made all the difference."
RWA Sports Committee Chairperson, A Residential Society, Noida