Global Acts
| Act Global have been Homeless World Cup partner since the Amsterdam 2015 Homeless World Cup. Image: Daniel Lipinski
It would have been easy for synthetic turf manufacturer Act Global to focus on the benefits sponsoring a football tournament would bring the company when it was approached to become a Homeless World Cup partner: What sort of good PR will this generate? What’s the return on investment? But CEO John Baize was more curious about how a football event tackled homelessness.
“I’ve never seen anything like a sporting event that does what this does. It’s so intriguing,” he explains. “You need some donations, right? Ok, yeah, I’ll sort that out. But tell me, how do you help people experiencing homelessness?”
After diving deep into the Homeless World Cup’s website and the internet to conduct some due diligence, Baize signed Act Global on as a sponsor for the 2015 tournament in Amsterdam. For nearly a decade since, the company has provided professional-level synthetic turf for every Homeless World Cup tournament in places as far afield as Oslo, Mexico City, and now Seoul.
Baize puts that long-term sponsorship commitment into words that many who’ve encountered the Homeless World Cup would attest: “I think you do it once, and then you’re hooked.” Ultimately, he says, “I like [being involved in the tournament] because it gives a personal soapbox to say, ‘Let’s look at things a little differently.’”
Act Global approaches business a little differently. For a start, it takes its corporate social responsibility and sustainability really seriously. The company’s motto is ‘Be More’, which relates to innovating and seeking to best serve its market, customers, and the planet. In the context of the Homeless World Cup sponsorship, that translates to providing the tournament and players with the best possible quality product and service.
The FIFA-licensed Act Global team uses the same level of shock pads it used for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and uses for NFL teams such as the Minnesota Vikings. “So the shock pad we use for a team that has $200 million worth of players is the same shock pad we use for the Homeless World Cup,” Baize explains.
|"Our factory staff really love doing this, because a lot of times you make product, you ship it out. But they know that this one is to help support a cause." Image: Romain Kedochim
The team also sources the highest quality raw materials to manufacture the turf panels that form the pitch. The team sews a blade of synthetic grass every three eighths of an inch, which equates to approximately 10,000 stitches per square metre.
Such stitching requires a hefty needle to punch through and secure the grass blades against the reinforced backing. Achieving that cut-through also requires some significant power. “We have to reinforce the flooring and go down a couple of metres to reinforce the concrete, or else you’ll just punch a hole in the ground.”
When it comes to on-site installation at the Homeless World Cup, the carefully designed turf panels fit together like puzzle pieces. Affixed to the foundations not by glue and nails but by Velcro, the turf is also hypoallergenic—it contains no heavy metals; there’s no carcinogens—and the logos are inscribed using not chemicals or paint, but high-pressure water jets.
The idea is the turf is a safe to play on and feels good underfoot (or, in the case of goalkeepers who spend a considerable amount of time diving on the surface, under hip and elbow). “It’s nice that people are able to play hard, play safe … We need them to compete and go home with a great experience,” Baize says.
The benefits also extend beyond the players. “Our factory staff really love doing this, because a lot of times you make product, you ship it out. But they know that this one is to help support a cause. I actually think we probably put more attention to this than [some other products],” he quips.
An example of such attention to detail is one of his team who travelled to the 2023 tournament in Sacramento got out a leaf blower in the 40-degree-Celsius Sacramento heat to sweep the pitches. That same staff member also got down on his hands and knees with a knife to manicure the pitches to ensure they were pristine.
Such personal quality assurance is more than the Act Global team needs to do, but it’s something they consider integral and that’s emblematic of their ‘be more’ commitment to the tournament: “It’s more, just, if you’re going to be involved in something, is it just to tick the box?” Baize asks rhetorically.
Words: Fiona Crawford