Royersford Business Combines Football Equipment and Technology

We've all see it. The game ends. The crowd goes wild. They storm the field, and what's the first thing to go? The goal post, of course.

After years of seeing this happen, at sometimes a hefty cost to the home team's athletic department, those in the equipment industry began to get more creative.

“Nothing we make is perfect, but we constantly look to improve it,” said Tim Driscoll, the president of Aluminum Athletic Equipment Company (AAE) in Royersford, Pa., which introduced the first rollaway goal posts decades ago, in a recent article with the New York Times. “The one constant is change in this business.”

AAE, according to its own website, has been selling a retractable and moveable goalposts for years now.

According to the New York Time report, the industry is a good one to be involved in right now.

"Estimates vary, but the market for equipment for sports facilities is worth roughly $100 million, with Sportsfield, Gilman Gear and AAE among the leaders in an industry dominated by small, family-run companies," said the article. "Sales over all have remained steady in recent years despite a downturn in new school construction and pressure on municipal and college sports budgets, the companies said."

AAE says it strives to keep things simple, and useable, in the various sports it services.

"In 1950, when collegiate hurdle star, graduate engineer, scholastic coach and AAE company founder, John Marzucco, invented and patented the first rocker hurdle, he established a philosophy of designing and building athletic equipment from the coach’s point of view," says the AAE website. "Today, over 60 years later, we carry on that tradition. We still look at each product we make from the athlete’s and coach’s perspective first. Then we manufacture in all the quality and advantages that will make a real difference in performance for you."

AAE was recently in the news, explaining how its products can help schools keep athletes safe, but also save on the budget. After toppling goalposts in many a game, the industry's leaders, such as AAE, began to develop unique products that made destroying the markers nearly impossible.

According to the article in the New York Times, features such as retractable and adjustable goal posts both save schools money and make them easier to use.

"These companies produce things like padding, netting, dugouts, bleachers, portable pitching mounds and steeplechase pits," said the New York Times article. "Fans may barely give them a thought, but these products are continually being tweaked to adapt to changing needs, tight budgets and growing safety concerns."

For more on Royersford's own AAE, visit the company's website.