Blog: Having a ball at the football factory

AKRON—Throughout the past six months, I have had the incredible opportunity to speak with various people about how rubber and plastics are utilized in the sports we love to watch and play. From thermoplastics elastomers in water fins and grips for all kinds of sports to the technology behind Bridgestone golf balls, it has been quite an educational experience.

This blog series also granted me the opportunity to tour the Wilson football plant in Ada, Ohio, which makes all the footballs for the National Football League, including the ones used in the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.

According the Wilson website, the plant employs 120 people who produce 4,000 footballs a day and more than 700,000 a year. The plant also produces official footballs for the NCAA, 28 high school associations, American Youth Football and countless other leagues.

“The quality of the official NFL football is a direct result of the professionalism and skilled craftsmanship of the workers in Ada,” the website claims.

“Whether you cut panels, sew the footballs or turn them right side out, everyone at the Wilson football factory shares the goal of producing the highest quality football in the game. That dedication to quality has made Wilson a big part of American football lore.”

With all this build-up on the website, I decided I drive down to this little piece of Americana.

I arrived at the plant and met with Daniel Riegle, plant manager, and sat down in his office to discuss all the rubber and plastics that go into a football. Riegle has worked at the plant for 34 years and has been the plant manager for about 19 years.

His trek into the world of football was simple: he saw an ad in the paper in 1981 and decided to make a go of it.

Rubber and plastics is important to a football because without it, the football cannot function. The bladder of the football is polyurethane-based, and if the bladder fails, you cannot use the football.

“It's one of the most important parts,” Riegle said of the bladder.

The bladder has been made with polyurethane since the late 1980s. It previously was made from butyl rubber, he explained.

The change occurred because polyurethane has better air retention over time than butyl. A football can last years with the polyurethane-based bladder.

In addition, the bladder is connected to the valve (which is not made in the Ada plant). The valve also is made from a rubber/plastic material, but Riegle would not disclose those valve properties.

Besides the bladders, Riegle said the laces are another key element of the football that is made from the plastics and rubber realm.

On a personal level, I learned so much about plastics and rubbers in the football. However, I also learned what a trained skill it is to assemble the football, especially when it comes to laces. Everything is done by hand, which is not something I never considered before. I watched the efficiency of Doug Fankhouser, who has laced footballs for more than 30 years. There were employees sewing the ball together; others were manually pulling the ball right side out. It was an eye-opening experience. I had, honestly, never thought about the manual nature of making footballs.

After watching Fankhouser lace up the football, I learned from Riegle a little bit more about the history of the laces. While I always thought laces were made of leather, Riegle explained while that used to be true, this changed in the early 1980s. The lacing material shifted from leather to vinyl.

“Leather is a product that can vary with humidity, temperature … by going to the vinyl lace, we have more of a consistent product,” he added, in terms of the laces.

Consistency in product is what is important. Riegle said. While a different ball could be made that could be punted farther, that would change the integrity of the game, he said.

For instance, if a record gets broken, the goal is for it to be done with an identical ball made by the previous record-holder.

The Ada, Ohio plant is most famous for manufacturing every football that has been in the Super Bowl, but Riegle said that every point that has been scored in the NFL since 1941 has been made with a football manufactured in the Ada plant.

This is something he said employees take great pride in as they make the footballs. He said the plant also manufacturers balls for the NCAA and the Japanese Football League for at least the past 20 years. It also makes footballs for the Canadian Football League, along with official footballs in Italy and Germany.

The plant also manufactures footballs for a variety of little league, etc. Wilson is able to create personalized balls for the variety of different leagues and games by adding a special logo. Pictured is the 2015 NFL Draft football the plant was working on while I toured the facility.

There are some differences within the different leagues and age brackets. For instance, the college and high school footballs have an additional rubber and plastic element because there is vinyl in the stripes on the ball. In footballs used by professional leagues, the stripes are added for aesthetics. In footballs used in college and high school, vinyl is added to the stripes because it allows for a better grip.

Workers at the plant are dedicated to the cause. The company's website reports that Wilson employees work through the night to ship game balls to the teams within 24 hours of NFC and AFC championship games.

The journey between Ada and Akron, Ohio, was a fun drive. On the way back, I got to process everything I had learned about the industry in which I work. When starting the Science & Sports blog series, I wanted to examine the rubber and plastics industries in a way that I understood from the time I was a little kid.

I am thankful to continue to learn about how important these industries are. From going to medical device conventions to taking a trip down to Ada, I have learned so much this year. I hope you have enjoyed this six-part series on sports and the science. In case you have missed any of the previous five posts, here they are:

• Constructing golf balls is like baking a cake

• Beyond Surface Technologies quest for sustainable sportswear

• The history of a tennis ball

• Conti, adidas collaborate on Get Your Grip campaign

• TPEs in various sports