Press Releases


Everlast More than Doubles Size of Its Line
December 17, 2008

It's official. The days of the basic black rubber weight room floor are gone. As designers, builders and architects focus on creating contemporary fitness clubs, wellness centers and athletic training facilities, color is the name of the game. And as colors go, none is attracting more attention industry wide than “green” -- not the hue position, but as in environmentally sustainable.

As the sports surfacing industry leader, Everlast is responding with the largest line expansion in its history. By adding 32 new patterns that feature new colors, higher color concentrations and more recycled content (in the form of Nike Grind rubber), Everlast sports surfacing brings the number of pattern options to 54, the largest in the industry.

“We’ve made a practice of listening to our customers and paying attention to what the market is looking for,” said Robert Dougherty, general manger, sports surfacing for ECORE International, maker of Everlast products. “That paid off with our most successful year ever in 2008 and led us to expand our line to address the increased demand for more colors, more design options and a greater focus on sustainability.”

Everlast’s 54 fitness flooring color options are grouped into three collections: Warm Up (neutrals), Burn (reds, oranges, yellows) and Cool Down (purples, blues and greens). The expanded line offers color concentrations that range from 20 percent (80 percent black recycled rubber) to 100 percent (solid colors).

In addition to offering the broadest color line in the business, Everlast products are also among the most environmentally sensitive. Everlast fitness flooring is comprised of post-consumer tire rubber, ColorMill EPDM, made from post industrial waste and organic fillers, and Nike Grind rubber. Nike Grind is the name given to raw materials made from recycled athletic shoes and Nike footwear manufacturing byproducts: rubber from the outsole, foam from the midsole and fabric from the upper shoe. For Everlast, post-manufacturing Nike Grind rubber is blended with premium recycled tire rubber to create Everlast sports surfacing. By using Nike Grind material in Everlast sports surfacing products, nearly 500,000 pounds of unused Nike by-products will be rescued from landfills each year.

These materials are bound together using a water based polyurethane polymer. The product line is produced using a low embodied energy manufacturing process that requires minimal water, avoids heat and reuses in-line scrap to decrease waste. The result is durable, tough as tires, environmentally responsible fitness flooring that passes the strictest tests for indoor air quality and low-VOC emissions.

Everlast products are made in the U.S.A and can contribute points toward the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. Based on LEED criteria, Everlast products can assist specifiers by potentially contributing up to 7 points toward LEED certification.

As North America’s largest user of scrap tire rubber, ECORE salvages more than 80 million pounds of scrap tire rubber from landfills each year, converting them into durable product solutions for commercial, industrial and architectural applications.

For more information on Nike Grind go to www.nikegrind.com.