Those watching the National Football League’s Super Bowl this weekend won’t be able to miss seeing a bit of Delhi.
Sportsfield Specialties, a family-owned business headquartered in Delhi, manufactured the goal posts at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, where the game will be played Sunday, Feb. 8.
Goal posts are among many products manufactured by the firm.
“We cracked into the NFL in 2006, participating in our first Super Bowl two seasons later,” said Sean Clark, president of Sportsfield Specialties. “Since that time, we’ve become the go-to supplier across the league, installing goal posts at 29 of 30 NFL stadiums.”
“While our products are on display every Sunday, the gravity of the Super Bowl has a special way of creating attention at this time every year,” he said.
Sportsfield Specialties was founded in 1998 and started manufacturing sports construction equipment in 2004. In addition to goal posts, Sportsfield is a provider of protective netting systems, baseball and softball equipment, dugouts, track and field equipment, stadium padding and many other specialty products.
“Our product list contains thousands of items,” Clark said.
“Designing and manufacturing sports facility equipment was born from decades of experience constructing outdoor athletic fields and running tracks,” he said.
The business has its beginnings with Clark’s grandfather, Burton F. Clark, who founded Burton Clark Excavating in 1948.
In 1973, Sean’s father, Scott Clark, rebranded the business as Clark Companies, shifting its focus to regional sports construction. Today, the company is led by Sean’s brother and business partner, Chris Clark, who continues to build on the family’s nearly eight decades of work.
Under Sean Clark’s leadership, Sportsfield Specialties has expanded substantially. There were 27 employees in 2005, and currently there are 321 employees.
“Employment has nearly doubled since 2020 and nearly tripled since 2015,” Clark said.
The company’s manufacturing footprint increased 25-fold in the last two decades.
In 2004, Sportsfield Specialties operated in 20,000 square feet of space, Clark said. By 2025, they had expanded to more than 500,000 square feet of manufacturing space across four locations — two in Delhi, one in North Carolina and the newest plant in Deposit.
Clark said the majority of the company’s work occurs at schools and colleges.
“If you think about it, there are a relatively small number of professional teams when compared to approximately 27,000 high schools and 6,000 colleges across the U.S.,” he said.
Locally, Oneonta High School is a longtime client. So are SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Delhi and Hartwick College.
“We’ve done business with most local colleges and school districts (including) Oneonta, Delaware Academy, Charlotte Valley, Unatego, Sidney, Sherburne-Earlville, Harpursville, Schoharie and many others,” Clark said.
Sportsfield Specialties has many high-profile clients in multiple sports. They supply products to 23 of 30 Major League Baseball stadiums, more than 100 Minor League Baseball stadiums, Major League Soccer and National Collegiate Athletic Association schools, Clark said.
“Collectively, there are more than 350 Division I schools that field more than 6,000 athletics teams and provide opportunities for more than 170,000 student athletes to compete in NCAA sports each year,” according to the NCAA website.
Sportsfield does business throughout North America and occasionally abroad.
“We’re focused on the U.S. market and conduct business in all 50 states,” Clark said.
Sportsfield has some other famous clients. They include big names such as the New York Giants, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, and college teams including Alabama, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Miami, Oregon, Army and Ole Miss.
“We’ve been at the forefront of several major shifts in professional sports, including the NFL’s rule change requiring taller goal posts, MLB’s extension of protective netting, and Major League Soccer’s expansion,” Clark said.
Several recent noteworthy projects include the MLB Speedway Classic last year.
“The opportunity to partner with the groundbreaking Major League Baseball game at Bristol Motor Speedway was exciting and rare,” Clark said.
The Bristol Motor Speedway is in Bristol, Tennessee. Sportsfield supplied backstop netting, foul poles and protective padding to the speedway for the Braves vs. Reds game.
Sportsfield supplied the new $2.2 billion Highmark Stadium for the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, with goal posts, pads, netting and field accessories. The state-of-the-art, 60,000-seat venue is scheduled to have its grand opening in September when the new NFL season kicks off.
The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team plays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. After hurricane damage in 2024, extensive repairs were needed. The stadium will reopen in April, according to ESPN. Sportsfield supplied Tropicana Field with a new protective netting system spanning the backstop and foul lines.
Sportsfield is hiring. “We put a lot of emphasis on local residents and new graduates. While we recruit nationally and have team members from all walks of life, it’s fair to say that most have ties to the area,” Clark said.
“We are fortunate to have such talented, high-character people throughout our local communities,” he said.