‘The balls have to be perfect when they leave our facility;’ Footballs for Super Bowl made in Ohio
People are planning to huddle around their television Sunday night for the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
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News Center 7′s newest reporter Taylor Robertson traveled to Ada and checked out how the footballs for the game are made.
Teams at the Wilson Football Factory are gearing for up for Sunday’s Big Game.
Workers make more than 5,000 footballs each year but the footballs they look forward to making the most are the ones for the Super Bowl.
Robertson says as soon as they know which teams will playing, no time is wasted.
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“We worked until 5 a.m. that next Monday so we could ship the teams their balls early so they can start prepping them early for the quarterbacks to use in the game,” said Mike Springer, quality manager at Wilson Sporting Goods.
Once the leather makes it to the back door of the factory, the 18-step process of making the balls begins.
“Every ball is laced by hand, sewn by hand and turned by hand,” he said.
Robertson says the first step is to cut the leather and stamp on the team logos.
Then, they saw the ball together before handing it off to the turners.
“It’s physically our most demanding job here in the plant,” said Springer.
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Workers will then lace up the balls and send them to the molding state for final checks.
“The balls have to be perfect when they leave our facility,” explained Springer.
Robertson says these footballs have already been shipped off to the Super Bowl and workers say they are going to walking back through these doors Sunday to watch their footballs in action.
