Why Isn’t Concrete as Good as It Used to Be?

If you’re thinking about putting in a backyard pickleball, basketball court, or multi-sports court in 2026, there’s something happening behind the scenes in the concrete industry that most homeowners aren’t aware of that impacts how their athletic court should be built.

The cement itself has changed. Not the concrete company, not the mix design, the actual cement powder. And this is not just something for Nebraska, but it has been rolling out across the nation.

Here’s the plain-English version of what’s going on and why it matters for your backyard.

What Is Type 1L Cement?

Cement and concrete aren’t the same thing, even though people use the words interchangeably. Concrete is what gets poured. Cement is the binder inside it, the glue that holds the rock, sand, and water together.

For about 100 years, the American standard was Type I/II Portland cement. That’s what your grandpa poured his garage floor with. It’s what went under every tennis court, driveway, and basement slab in Nebraska for generations.

Type 1L, also called Portland-Limestone Cement or PLC, is the new standard. Instead of the traditional formula, Type 1L blends up to 15% finely ground limestone into the cement itself. The old recipe allowed up to 5%.

Triple the limestone, less of the high-emission clinker that makes up the bulk of traditional cement.

The result is a cement with roughly a 10% smaller carbon footprint per ton. When you consider how much concrete gets placed in the U.S. every year, that adds up fast.

Why the Switch Happened

This wasn’t a marketing decision. It was a policy decision.

Federal and state agencies started pushing for lower-embodied-carbon construction materials. The General Services Administration set embodied carbon limits on federal projects. State DOTs started approving Type 1L for highway and bridge work, over 44 of them at this point. Once the government buyers moved, the whole market followed.

Cement producers store their product in massive silos that can only hold one type of cement at a time. Buying new silos to run both old and new formulas at once is expensive. So once a plant converts to Type 1L, they rarely switch back. Roughly 60% of the cement in the U.S. market is now Type 1L, and that number keeps climbing. By 2024 and 2025, finding traditional Type I/II cement in many regions became genuinely difficult. In Nebraska, if we were trying to find that type we would have to ship it in (which is not financially conducive for most backyard sports projects.)

If you’re pouring anything with concrete in 2026, there’s a strong chance you’re getting Type 1L whether you asked for it or not.

What This Means for Your Sport game Court

Here’s the part most homeowners don’t realize. Type 1L is not identical to the old cement. It’s compatible, it meets the same strength standards on paper, and it’s been tested exhaustively. But it behaves a little differently in the field.

The limestone is finer than the clinker it replaces. That means:

• Water demand can be higher. The finer particles want more water, which affects workability.
• Early strength gain can be slower. The concrete may take longer to reach full strength, sometimes up to 50 days in some mixes.
• Finishing windows shift. Set times and bleed behavior can change, which matters a lot for the flat, smooth surface a backyard court needs.
• Shrinkage cracking is more sensitive to poor curing. If you don’t cure it right, cracks show up faster than they would have with the old stuff.

For a driveway, most of this is invisible. For a sport game court, where you need a dead-flat surface, tight control joints, and a long service life, the details matter.

How We Handle It at Endurance Courts

We’ve been watching this shift closely, because a backyard court isn’t a forgiving surface. You can feel a bad slab under your feet every time you play on it.

A few things we do differently because of Type 1L:

1. We specify mix designs that account for the cement change. That includes adjusted water-cement ratios and the right supplementary materials like fly ash or slag where appropriate.
2. We schedule pours around weather. Hot, windy Nebraska days are harder on Type 1L than they were on the old cement. Sometimes that means an early-morning pour. Sometimes it means rescheduling.
3. We build in the right control joints and expansion joints. Shrinkage is more pronounced, so the jointing plan matters more than it used to.
4. We ask for batch tickets. We want to know exactly what’s in your slab, not guess at it. And we have a clear mix ratio we request of concrete companies.

Most of this is standard best-practice concrete work. The difference is that with Type 1L, there’s less margin for cutting corners. Contractors who were getting away with sloppy curing or rushed finishing on the old cement are getting called out on Type 1L slabs that crack or dust within a year.

The Bottom Line

Type 1L cement is here to stay. It’s better for the environment, it meets the same strength specs, and it’s what’s coming out of the ready-mix truck.

It’s also a little pickier about how it’s placed and cured. So craftsmanship matters more than ever.

In the hands of a crew that knows what they’re doing, a Type 1L court slab will perform just as well as the old stuff for decades. In the hands of a crew that’s still pouring like it’s 2015, you might see cracks, surface dusting, or strength issues a lot sooner than you should.

If you’re comparing bids for a backyard court this year, it’s worth asking your contractor whether they know what’s in the cement they’re pouring. If they give you a blank stare, that tells you something.

We’ve got answers. And we’ve got courts holding up beautifully with the new mixes. If you’re thinking about building this year, let’s talk.