Ada, Ohio, may seem like an unlikely place for the "football capital of the world", but don't tell that to workers at Ada's Wilson Football factory who proudly produce leather footballs for every major gridiron contest in the country.
The exterior of the unassuming factory building on a side street in this small, northwestern Ohio town gives little hint about its importance to football, but we discovered that the factory looms large in football legend.
Wilson became the official manufacturer of NFL footballs in 1941. Today the company continues to supply all of the NFL's official game balls, as well as footballs for the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, the NCAA, many high school associations and other football leagues throughout the nation.
Wilson opened the Ada factory in 1955. The facility continues to produce as many as 4,000 footballs a day, or 700,000 per year, as the world's sole factory dedicated to making leather footballs.
Wilson takes particular pride in the fact that these leather footballs are American-made, although the company does produce its less expensive, synthetic footballs overseas. Football is the only major sports league using balls manufactured in this country (World Series baseballs supposedly come from Costa Rica and basketballs for the NBA finals come from China).
The factory sometimes hosts tours or displays of their vintage footballs during special events or festivals in town, but we were there during a rainy and quiet week in spring, so we didn't get to go inside.
I did get a glimpse of the football manufacturing process and the people behind the footballs via company-produced YouTube videos online.
The Ada factory employs about 120 workers, with many of them working at the plant for 20 years or more.
The process starts with large pieces of cowhide specially tanned and embossed with a proprietary finish bearing the Wilson 'W'.
Workers cut the hide into panels, press logos into the leather, apply black or gold foil to the logos, split the leather to the proper weight and sew the panels together. One fellow, who must be very strong, turns the footballs, which are inside out at this point, right side out so others can insert a rubber bladder in each ball, hand lace them and pump them to a specified air pressure.
Each football approved as an official game ball must be of a uniform weight and size.
Producing footballs used in each year's Super Bowl requires workers in Ada to start work the moment the games determining those teams going to the Super Bowl end. A crew shows up at the factory as the final deciding championship game heads into its second half and sets up production as the game ends.
Each Super Bowl football has the names of the two competing teams stamped into its leather. The Ada crew produced 216 footballs for the most recent Super Bowl game, getting them to their destinations via overnight shipment and couriers.
Each Super Bowl team gets 54 footballs to take to the game with them, as well as a batch of practice footballs. Many of the teams' footballs leave play during the game, destined for the Pro Football Hall of Fame or to the teams for display in their own trophy cases.
Game officials also receive a dozen balls to use for kick-offs and place kicks.
Workers also produce 10,000 to 20,000 Super Bowl footballs for retail sale.
Looking for one of Wilson's "official" leather footballs? I found several on Amazon, including a Wilson New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers 2007 AFC Conference Duel Football, an NFL Wilson Duke Leather Super Bowl XLIII Football and a Wilson F1100 Official NFL Game Football.
© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved
can i order single footballs from this company i would like to order oregon ducks footballs if you make them
Posted by: Rodney Hart | January 20, 2015 at 06:35 PM
Hi Rodney,
Thanks for stopping by!
I don't work for the company, I just wrote this story about them for my site. Your best bet would be to contact Wilson directly.http://www.wilson.com/en-us/football/footballs/ I've also found a few of the company's footballs though Amazon (the quickest way to get to that may be to click on the link for the Duke football in the above story and search Amazon from there). Hope this helps you find what you're looking for :)
Posted by: Dominique King | January 21, 2015 at 08:09 AM