Sports Themed Flooring Ideas For Super Bowl Week and Beyond

As the New England Patriots and N.Y. Giants prepare to lock horns in Super Bowl LXII, readers may wonder what options, if any, exist for them to express their sports allegiances, NFL or otherwise, through floor covering.

Certainly, myriad options abound and I am not going to attempt to catalog or critique them all at this time. One area I will touch concerns sports-themed area rugs. When considering this option for expressing one's undying loyalty to a college or professional franchise, readers should understand that there is a wide variance in the beauty and quality in the marketplace. Quite frankly, the offerings that home centers, discounters, and on-line purveyors hawk to the public are often (but not always) of inferior color, quality, and construction. My advice is, wherever possible, try to inspect an actual example or sample of the product. As I explain below, the qualitative advantages of the better-made goods are well worth the additional investment of time and money.

One group of sports-themed area rugs to review and strongly consider are those from Milliken & Company. Milliken is among the world's leaders in developing innovative textile/fabric-related products. Few people realize that Milliken, among other things, produces the "fuzz" on tennis balls, the fabric for car seats, or the innards of automobile air bags. Milliken Carpet, is a division of this company that is among the leading providers of patterned carpet--whether broadloom, carpet tiles, area rugs, or other related items.

What makes Milliken's products different quite frankly is their printing technology. Milliken's use of color and design is tremendous and really makes a visible difference in the finished product versus many knock offs. Likewise, Milliken's general manufacturing process results in a quality construction worthy of the design element.

Milliken's sports themed rugs include a host of offerings from both the collegiate and professional ranks. Officially licensed, these products include options featuring a single team logo on coordinating-colored backgrounds, a team logo superimposed over a football field, multiple/repeating examples of the team logo, and even holiday-related variants of the team logo. This link points to a pdf file featuring these rugs. In addition to the NFL-licensed product, Milliken also offers college-themed rubber mats. What strikes me most about these products are the colors. The "Carolina Blue" is in fact "Carolina Blue," not some washed out (or worse pseduo-fluorescent) variant. True fans will value and appreciate the difference. Milliken even has a program where they will turn a .jpg file of any photo into a custom rug or mat; the pricing generally is extremely reasonable especially given the company's willingness to create a single rug or mat at a time (quantity discounts may apply for local elementary or high schools). The photo does not even have to be sports-related, it can be almost anything. Of course, all such options and programs would need to be worked through your locally-authorized Milliken retailer.

Of course, the themed rugs are only a start for those developing a "sports cave" of their very own. Dozens of other NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, PGA, and NCAA related merchandise options such as puffy chairs, posters, penants, memorabilia, penants, and the intriguing (and perhaps disturbing) line of monster-sized products from fathead, can be combined with themed flooring to complete your masterpiece of design.

Good luck! Anyone caring to submit images of their finished denizens of sports worship may find them subsequently posted in this entry.