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May 26, 2023

History of the Football: Watch How Wilson Crafts Its NFL Ball

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From round to watermelon to its present familiar shape, the football has been stoking the passions of fans for over 100 years.

In a century and a half since the first game of American football, the sport has evolved from a grind-it-out ground war to the passing-dominated aerial assault that is NFL football in the 21st century.

But the evolution of play-calling tactics isn't the only factor that brought us here. You can credit technological innovation, too. The long bombs you might see in the Super Bowl are brought to you in part by Wilson—which has made the official game ball of the NFL since 1941—and also by more than a century of football innovation, a slow-but-steady process that made American football the pass-friendly sport we know and love today.

Every NFL football is born at the Wilson factory in Ada, Ohio, a small town an hour south of Toledo. It's here that more than 100 employees cut, sew, lace, and inflate 4,000 footballs every day from U.S.-sourced materials. From this factory comes every single football used in an NFL game (and the NCAA), and the NFL uses a lot of them every season.

"Each NFL team gets 780 footballs and times that by 32 and you get 24,960 footballs," Wilson Plant Manager Andy Wentling tells Popular Mechanics. "The NCAA will make several hundred thousand footballs to process for the high schools and the colleges in the country."

But much like how the Super Bowl gets glitzed up with a stunning half-time show and high-quality commercials, the game ball also gets special attention. Each Super Bowl team will receive 108 game balls each, and Wilson will make an additional 12 kicking balls, meaning 228 footballs will be made for the Super Bowl specifically, says Wentling. The ball isn't designed with the typical NFL shield, but instead sports a special logo influenced by the Super Bowl's host city. For 2023, for example, that means colors reminiscent of the Phoenix skyline. For the big game, the NFL also inserts sensors in the balls to measure game data in realtime.

The process of making a large batch of footballs can take anywhere from 25 to 30 days, but Wentling clarifies that a single football (much like the NCAA GST football captured above) can actually be marched through the entire process in just 15 minutes. It all starts with cutting four panels from large pieces of cowhide (yes, cow—not pig). Then a machine stamps the proper insignias and logos before white stripes (for college balls) are attached with a sewing machine.

The four leather panels of the ball are sewn together from the inside, and then the ball undergoes a process called "turning," in which it's taken out of a steam machine (to make it pliable) and forcibly reversed by hand on a metal pole. Next, the inflation bladder is inserted into the ball and then it gets laced up.

The final (and vital) step is called "molding," wherein nearly completed footballs are placed inside a pressurized chamber to get out any residual lumps, crinkles, or rough edges. After a thorough inspection for quality, the football is ready for the big game.

Today's modern Wilson football is actually the product of more than a century of innovation, which all started at Rutgers University in New Jersey on November 6, 1869. The ball used in this very first game was round, like a soccer ball, and it was tough to carry and awkward to throw. Then, in 1874, a rugby-type ball was used in a contest between McGill University Foot-Ball-Club and Harvard University Football Club. This new ball looked like a watermelon, and wasn't much easier to handle. But laterals and short flips were becoming more common.

Little changed until 1912. That year, a new set of rules for college football transformed the game ball from the watermelon-shaped ball to an oversize version of today's modern football. The pros soon followed. The ball now weighed 14 to 15 ounces, its long axis was set between 28 and 28 1/2 inches, and its short axis (around the middle) between 22 1/2 and 23 inches. Still, football remained a grab-it-and-run game. The dangerous "flying wedge," which involved the ball carrier following a phalanx of blockers, became routine. Hard-running backs like Jim Thorpe of the Canton Bulldogs and Red Grange of the Chicago Bears were the big stars of the day.

In 1920, 28 years after William "Pudge" Heffelfinger became the first professional football player, the American Professional Football Association was formed, and the Spalding J5-V was named the official ball of the league. In 1922, the league was renamed the National Football League. And, in the 1930s, the Spalding J5-V began to be known as "The Duke," which was the boyhood nickname of Wellington Mara, owner of the New York Giants.

Despite the contemporization of the game, there was still a big problem that had plagued football manufacturers for 50 years. The air continuously leaked out of the rubber bladder inside the ball. In fact, during the second game between Rutgers and Princeton University in 1869, the ball kept deflating and losing its shape. Play had to be stopped several times, and a key that unlocked the small nozzle tucked inside the ball had to be brought in. The players took turns blowing up the ball.

Over time, inflating the ball became easier, but retaining the air did not. In 1886, the Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods catalog offered a syringe-like device that was called, appropriately, the New Patent Foot Ball Inflator. With it, a football could be inflated in 5 minutes. The old way took half an hour. Eventually, metal stem valves like those on automobile tires were replaced with less dangerous rubber valves. But, around 1920, the development of prelacing was an even greater improvement. Suddenly, a ball did not have to be unlaced to be inflated.

Wilson, with the help of famed Notre Dame head coach Knute Rockne, developed a new double-lined football in 1924. The following year, the first valve-inflated football eliminated the need for a stem, which had always caused a lump under the laces. With Rockne's name on the ball, the "KR," as it was known, was easier to throw in a tight spiral, and it paved the way for the modern passing game.

In 1935, the NFL shortened the ball's short axis to between 21 1/4 and 21 1/2 inches. The ball's length was shortened that year to between 11 and 11-1/4 inches, and the amount of air that it could hold was set at 12.5 to 13.5 psi. Its long axis of 28 to 28-1/2 inches, however, did not change. These dimensions remain today, as does the ball's shape (which has been called a "prolate spheroid" since 1890).

In 1941, with "Slingin’" Sammy Baugh of the Washington Redskins fast becoming the NFL's first great passing quarterback, Wilson purchased "The Duke" name from rival Spalding, and became the official manufacturer of all NFL footballs. Wilson continued to improve the ball with such innovations as hand-sewn ends, triple lining, and lock-stitch seams. In 1951, rubber footballs were tried briefly, and in 1956, the NFL approved the use of easier-to-see white footballs for night games. This evolved into special night footballs with white stripes around each end—banned in 1976 because the paint made the balls slick.

In 1955, Wilson developed the TD football, which featured a new Tanned-in-Tack material, also known as Grip-Tite. This material has a tacky feel that makes the ball easier to grip, especially when wet. The exclusive Tanned-in-Tack cowhide leather is supplied by the Horween Leather Co., and has been since 1941.

In 1981, a new Ultra Pebble design for the leather, which further enhanced the grip, was introduced. Inside the ball is a high-tech three-ply polyurethane bladder. Two of the layers are standard polyurethane, but the third is a unique material, which is secret. The lacing, once fragile cotton, like shoelaces, is now made of an extruded polyvinyl chloride, which is more durable.

No longer the simple watermelon of football's distant past, the Wilson football is now a marvel of material science and aerodynamic engineering. So the next time you find yourself blown away by a Patrick Mahomes bomb or feeling nostalgic for the genius of Johnny U. or Joe "Willie," just remember, they owe it all to the modern football.

Now, go long.

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