As sports fields designers we understand that each sport played has inherent risks of the ball leaving the field. The use and the evolution of netting to counter these risks is something we recommend to our clients.
Netting has become a requirement in many professional sports like baseball and hockey. Whether a baseball, softball, soccer ball, lacrosse ball, or tennis ball leaving the field could potentially cause serious harm and physical damage to both property, spectators, other competitors, and passersby.
Netting is most often seen in baseball and softball applications to address foul ball containment and to provide confinement in batting cages. The purpose of the netting is to reduce the level of risk of the sport on the adjacent areas. No netting will capture every ball unless completely encapsulating the field in a dome.
More recently netting has also been used where the field meets the D-zones in track to keep soccer and lacrosse balls from leaving the field area which protects other users of the facility such as runners. By adding the netting to each end of the field the pace of play increases and the safety of all the users is enhanced while allowing more athletes and differing sports to practice at the same time.
Verde Design’s approach to the use of netting begins with the evaluation of the athletic facility and perimeter conditions. Fields located near streets, parking lots, trails, or high use areas should look at installing netting. Also, fields located adjacent to each other, as spectators are typically focused on one field and not the other.
Some of the benefits of netting are:
