Behind deflate-gate: See the small town where NFL footballs are made
Deflate-gate. It’s the scandal that launched a thousand opinions on the Patriots, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Public opinion seemed to turn against Brady in a tidal wave and even Bill Nye the science guy weighed in – saying Belichik’s explanation made no sense.
But to understand the headlines coming out of that New England locker room, you have to travel about 775 miles west to a town called Ada, Ohio. It’s here, in this small college town (it’s lucky to hit 6,000 residents when Ohio Northern University is in session), that every NFL football has been made since 1941.
That’s right – every Super Bowl touchdown, fumble, interception and field goal has originated in this Wilson Sporting Goods football factory, with one of its 120 employees. And here in Ada, no one is talking about “Deflate-gate.”
In fact – when Yahoo Finance reached out to the local paper, the Ada Herald, to see whether the town had any opinion about a story with the potential to cast shade on the legacy of one of its main employers, we were asked, “When did that happen again?”
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In Ada, the biggest story is still the Ohio State Buckeyes winning the National Championship against Oregon and whether or not Wilson will make a commemorative football in honor of the event. “I haven’t heard anybody go on about [deflate-gate] because they’re so happy about the Buckeyes winning,” said Darla Crownhart, reporter at the Ada Herald.
“Wilson has been around forever,” she said. “Everybody loves Wilson.”
More than 40% of the Wilson Football factory’s employees live in Ada. The rest are in the surrounding towns. It’s one of the area’s big employers, behind the university. In many ways, the Ada plant is the quintessential American factory – 7am to 3:30pm, 5 days a week. Many employees stay there for life, moving across different areas of ball assembly until they find a job they love (sewing, lacing) and stick with it.
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Usually, the plant churns out 3-4,000 footballs a day. But this week, the team is working overtime. A handful of employees are in Arizona making handmade balls for fans – something they do every year. And with this much going on, employees haven’t had much time to pay attention to what did, or didn’t, happen in that New England locker room.
“They haven’t said much because we’re so focused on making as many balls as possible this week,” said factory manager, Dan Riegle.
If you’re curious how an NFL football gets made – it’s an entirely American story. Cowhide from Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska is shipped to a leather processor in Chicago where it’s treated to look just like a football. Those skins are sent to Ada, where they’re cut and stamped (with the Super Bowl numerals, perhaps, or with a Buckeyes Rose Bowl commemorative stamp). The leather is then lined, to give the ball strength, and then sewn together along four panels plus the top and bottom. The ball is sewn inside out, then flipped right side in, much like a pillow. A bladder is inserted and then the ball is laced up. All balls are shipped out to teams inflated to 13 lbs of pressure. Each team gets about 1,000 balls a season.
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It might sound simple, but each employee takes 3 to 6 months of training to learn the skills. “It’s a craft,” said Riegle. “They make it with their heart… Everyone here is very proud that we make the best football in the world.”
They know it’s the best because balls are tested 100%, according to Riegle. “We would never ship out a ball that wasn’t perfect, let alone to the NFL.”
Last Tuesday, the Ada plant shipped 108 balls to Arizona – 54 to each team. The players are expected to practice with those balls, and it’s from that batch that they’ll select the balls used to play Sunday’s Super Bowl. After that, it’s up to the players. According to Riegle, he expects every plant worker to be home watching the game, seeing their hard work pay off in both end zones.
Correction: A previous version of this article referred to Ohio Northern University as Northern Ohio University.
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