We get this question on many occasions throughout the year depending on the sport involved. There is some variability in our assumptions yet we tend to following these guide lines when comparing different painting options.

A typical 18-20 ounce aerosol can of spray paint is going to produce a 2” to 4” wide line that is between 200 to 300 linear feet depending on how fast you walk and whether you make a second pass. For example 100 square feet of paint coverage translates into 300 linear feet for a 4 inch line.

Using a more conservative figure of 200 linear feet for line coverage here are some examples for soccer, football, and lacrosse.

• Full sized soccer field, 360’ x 225’, penalty and goalie box, center circle, generates approximately 2300 linear feet (adding spectator boundary lines adds another 1400 linear feet). Thus you need 12 cans of aerosol paint (another 7 for spectator boundary lines). By using 300 linear feet you reduce the amount to 8 cans and 5 cans respectively.

• Full a full sized football field with 5 yard lines, 360’ x 160’, is approximately 4200 linear feet, add 1300 linear feet for spectator barrier, plus approximately 500 square feet for numbering (50 sq ft/1 aerosol can for coverage). On conservative end you would use 21, 7, and 10 cans for field, spectator boundary, and field numbers respectively. By using 300 linear feet per aerosol can the respective number would be 14, 4, and 10 cans per field.

• For a full sized men’s lacrosse field, 330’ x 180’, generates approximately 2200 linear feet. This field would require 11 aerosol cans of field marking paint.

Now for costs we’ll use $60/12 can case of aerosol paint or $5/can.

For bulk latex you’ll achieve approximately 300 linear feet per diluted gallon of field marking paint. So for example if we used a $60/5-gallon pail that is diluted 2 gallons of water to 1 gallon of paint (2:1) to produce 15 gallons of diluted paint for a cost of $4/diluted gallon.

We’ll use the larger field measurements and the conservative paint usage for comparison purposes:



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Using these comparisons and the number of fields and the number of times an organization lines their fields help justify the investment in bulk latex field marking equipment. Besides saving on supply costs the user will produce better quality lines that will hold up longer and apply the lines in less total time even when including mixing and clean-up.