The NFL’s Uprights Are Made in America

More specifically, they’re made in upstate New York with American-made materials by Sportsfield Specialties, whose football goalposts are in 31 of the 32 pro stadiums.

Long before you watch a game-winning kick sail through the uprights during the opening weekend of the 2026 National Football League season, consider the goalposts.

Each began as raw aluminum from Ohio and steel from American mills before being transformed by workers in upstate New York.

At Sportsfield Specialties in Delhi, N.Y., these metal materials become goalposts that are used in 31 of the 32 NFL stadiums across the country. Founded in 1998, the company has grown from a small offshoot of an athletic field construction business into what Director of Projects Keegan Mulholland calls “the most specified athletic equipment manufacturer in the country.”

“Goalposts were one of our first products and probably the product that put us on the map,” Mulholland said. “With goalposts in particular, we are kind of dominant in the level of play because of some of the innovative features we are able to do with our products.”

Sportsfield Specialties emerged from the family-owned Clark Companies, a field construction business that identified a shortage of quality athletic equipment manufacturers in the United States.

“They recognized a good business opportunity and that’s how we were formed,” Mulholland said.

Nearly three decades later, the company employs approximately 325 people and operates more than 500,000 square feet of manufacturing space across four facilities. The workforce has doubled since 2020 and tripled since Mulholland joined the company nearly a decade ago.

“We have been lucky enough to grow consistently since I’ve been here,” Mulholland said. “Since I’ve been here, we built one manufacturing facility, acquired two others and expanded our existing headquarters several times. We’ve really grown quite quickly in the last 10 years.”

Sportsfield’s growth has mirrored the expansion of its manufacturing footprint. Today, the company operates four facilities, including three in New York and one in North Carolina. While the North Carolina operation focuses on soft goods such as netting, padding and windscreens, the New York facilities specialize in products fabricated from aluminum and steel.

“The majority of our raw materials are sourced from Extrudex Aluminum in Ohio,” Mulholland said. “All the primary components for the goalposts themselves are aluminum and they will come in as straight pipe.”

Those aluminum components become the goosenecks, crossbars and uprights found on football fields nationwide.

Sportsfield purchases steel through Pacemaker Steel & Piping Company, which sources material from U.S. producers including Atlas Tube, Nucor Tubular, Welded Tube and Bull Moose Tube. For larger structural applications, the company also relies on steel sourced through Nucor’s manufacturing network.

“We bring in raw material as pipe and then manufacture it into the final form,” Mulholland said. “For the gooseneck that extends from the base to the crossbar, we roll it and bend it into form. We have machines that put holes in it and there is some welding that goes into this as well.”

The finished products may appear simple from the stands but engineering them requires precision. Goalposts used at the college and professional level can rise more than 40 feet above the playing surface and must withstand years of exposure to weather, wind and heavy use.

The manufacturing process requires precision. A goalpost that appears perfectly straight from the stands can be remarkably sensitive to even minor installation variations.

That challenge led Sportsfield to develop its patented AdjustRight system that allows the uprights – the vertical portion of the goalposts – to be adjusted slightly.

“If things are installed out of plumb during the initial installation you can plumb up the uprights with AdjustRight because even just being off a fraction of a degree at the base level will magnify at over 40 feet in height,” Mulholland said.

Another patent addresses the unexpected challenge of fans storming the field after major victories.

Sportsfield’s hydraulic hinge system allows a goalpost to be lowered safely to the ground in seconds. The system was developed in response to a trend familiar to college football fans. Following major upsets, crowds increasingly rush the field and attempt to tear down goalposts as souvenirs or symbols of celebration. While the scenes often make national headlines, they can also create safety concerns and costly damage.

“With that trend kind of becoming viral it’s been a unique business opportunity,” Mulholland said. “We have this product that can be lowered safely to the ground immediately following the game and guarded by security.”

The products have helped Sportsfield establish a presence at every level of football.

“We are in 31 NFL facilities,” Mulholland said. “It becomes easy to sell to high schools on the fact that they can have the same goalposts as these NFL teams. There is that trickle-down effect there.”

The goalposts manufactured by Sportsfield vary in size depending on the level of play.

“At the high school level, you usually have shorter uprights as kickers can’t get the ball as high in the air,” Mulholland said. “At the high school level it is usually 20-foot uprights from the crossbar so the overall height would be 30 feet from the ground.

“High schools also have a wider crossbar so from the outside to the inside of the upright is 23 feet, 4 inches. As you get up into college and professional it becomes narrower.”

The distance between the uprights in college and the NFL is 18 feet, 6 inches. At a college facility the uprights extend 30 feet above the crossbar with an overall height of 40 feet. The NFL has a minimum requirement of 35 feet for its uprights resulting in a 45-foot distance from top of the uprights to the playing field.

If you’ve ever watched a field goal attempt soar over the top of one of the uprights, you will understand why they are so high. Sometimes, with replays and all, it remains hard to tell if the kick was good.

The one constant across all levels of football is the crossbar, which is always 10 feet above the ground.

The goalposts are not painted by Sportsfield but are powder coated, most often with yellow coating seen in NFL stadiums. The company does offer white powder coated goal posts for certain college teams.

“A lot of times teams that have white in their primary color spectrum will do white,” Mulholland said. “Like a Penn State or Air Force will sometimes have white goalposts.”

All the goalposts at Sportsfield are engineered for what is considered normal wind speeds and the foundations and in-ground components are professionally engineered per project based on local wind speeds and solar conditions.

“There are certain parts of the country that are high wind areas and, in those scenarios, we have ways to kind of beef things up and we can change the connection method between the gooseneck and the crossbar,” Mulholland said. “We can change the attachment method of the uprights to the crossbar to help limit some of the sway and movement.

“The Green Bay Packers are one customer that have pursued an option like that since it is always windy there.”

Sportsfield’s reach extends far beyond football. The company manufactures soccer goals, lacrosse goals, rugby goalposts, baseball foul poles, protective padding systems, netting and a wide range of athletic equipment used at facilities throughout the country.

“What I like to say is anything you would find on an athletic field besides the field of play itself, all that sort of stuff we manufacture,” Mulholland said.

Sportsfield products are installed in more than 20 Major League Baseball ballparks, and the company supplied both the goalposts and football netting systems for the new Highmark Stadium project in Buffalo.

“The football goalposts for Highmark Stadium are ours,” Mulholland said. “The netting that goes up for extra points and field goals was designed and supplied by Sportsfield as well.”

From Friday night lights in small-town America to NFL stadiums, Sportsfield Specialties has built its reputation through domestic manufacturing, skilled workers and a focus on solving customer problems.

And the best part, it’s all made in America, by American workers.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing does not receive a commission from purchases made through the above links, nor was the organization or author paid for favorable coverage.

Labeling Note: This story is intended to highlight companies that support American jobs and that make great products in the United States. We rely on the companies listed to provide accurate information regarding their domestic operations and their products. Each company featured is individually responsible for labeling and advertising their products according to applicable standards, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s “Made in USA” standard or California’s “Made in USA” labeling law. We do not review individual products for compliance or claim that because a company is listed in the guide that their products comply with specific labeling or advertising standards. Our focus is on supporting companies that create American jobs.

For more on the Federal Trade Commission’s standards for “Made in USA” claims and California’s “Made in USA” labeling law, please also read this guest post by Dustin Painter and Kristi Wolff of Kelly Drye & Warren, LLP.