Dan Kolcun runs a business breaking in thousands of footballs each season for NFL and college teams. He’s prepped balls for multiple Super Bowls and for Ohio State, the highest-valued college football team. But before 2006, only NFL home teams were allowed to use specially prepared balls in games. Then a group of players, including Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, convinced the NFL to let both teams choose. That inspired college programs to take prepping more seriously too. Today, footballs are customized throughout production, from the leather to the shape of the ball.
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00:00Dan Coulson's job is to break in new footballs for quarterbacks on NFL and college teams.
00:08He uses conditioners, heat guns, and mud from New Jersey riverbanks.
00:16Getting the leather the way you want it to is an art form in itself.
00:19But just a few decades ago, pro players couldn't always use these customized footballs in games.
00:25Then, in 2006, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning helped convince the NFL to change the rules.
00:32That inspired teams across America to start testing new ways to customize footballs, too.
00:39But getting one ball ready can take days, so some teams hire outside specialists like Dan.
00:46Today, he and his wife Emily work out of their home in Bayonne, New Jersey,
00:50slathering thousands of balls per season, even for the Super Bowl.
00:55It smells like a swamp down here. It's terrible.
00:58So why do some teams spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on mudded footballs?
01:03And what does it take to get them all to the field?
01:10Dan started Gridiron Football Prep in 2021 after losing his job at Wilson Sporting Goods.
01:17He's in the middle of 48 balls for Ohio State, the country's most valuable college football program,
01:23worth roughly $2 billion.
01:26They've really championed this process of really making a ball that is conducive to their quarterback.
01:32So what we do is we'll get the ball, come over here, get our brush that we use.
01:39So you want to brush in circles because the grain of the leather might be slightly different per panel.
01:45What you're doing is you're kind of opening the pores of the actual leather itself.
01:53Dan applies his own custom leather conditioner, which adds moisture and grip.
02:08Then he uses an infrared thermometer to check when it's dried back to room temperature.
02:14Leather Balm loosens and softens the leather even more.
02:18Leather Balm is kind of our secret sauce, if you will.
02:22So as we compare brand new ball out of the box, conditioned, now balmed, ready to be heat gunned.
02:31NFL and college footballs are made from real leather.
02:35One of the reasons they're up to 10 times more expensive than the average ball at a sporting goods store.
02:44Horween Leather in Chicago has made leather for nearly every NFL and college football for the last 70 years.
02:52People ask me who I'm rooting for in the Super Bowl, and it's always the ball.
02:56Skip Horween's family opened the business in 1905.
03:00It's grown from a small shop to a company with roughly $25 million in annual sales.
03:07Horween's leather comes from the hides of steers, which are male cattle raised for beef.
03:13These hides are stronger and more flexible than the ones from other cattle, so they can withstand tough conditions on a football field.
03:21We pay a premium for them, and it's worth it.
03:25Roughly 2,500 hides arrive every day from Iowa and Canada.
03:30Employees grade each one on a scale of 1 to 10.
03:33The lower the number, the better the quality.
03:36Only grades 1, 2, and 3 are used for footballs.
03:40This particular skin has a bunch of fairly heavy scratches in it, and that would not be suitable for top grade football skin.
03:48Then they throw the hides into drums filled with tree bark extract, oil, and waxes.
03:54This transforms them into leather.
04:00Next, a machine squeezes out excess moisture.
04:11Then workers throw the hides onto glass panels for four hours to dry.
04:16So this whole thing is a giant hot air dryer.
04:25Next is the embossing phase, which gives the football its texture.
04:30A metal press stamps each hide with up to 1,000 tons of pressure, so the pebbles don't fade over time.
04:38Horween makes eight kinds of football leather, and another for NBA basketballs.
04:43Football is the grippier of the two, again, because you've got your skilled players that need to be able to handle the ball.
04:49Whether it's catching, throwing, snapping, or kicking.
04:52Workers spray each hide with up to five coats of dye to give it a slick finish.
04:57All of the football companies we work with have slightly different pattern and slightly different finishes.
05:04Horween ships about 250,000 sheets of finished leather a year, also called sides.
05:11Skip says sales are strong, and he's excited to see what the future holds.
05:17Skip says sales are strong now, but he lost some clients over the years as cheaper, synthetic leather became more popular.
05:25Fake leather is a $39 billion industry, and expected to nearly double in the next decade.
05:32A lot of those retail balls were leather at one time.
05:35Almost entirely synthetic now.
05:38Skip says making leather for different industries helps Horween survive tough times.
05:43This might be football leather today, and shoe leather tomorrow, and jacket leather the next day.
05:52It's not an easy business. None of them really are.
05:54But the idea that I can turn on a game and see something that I had a small part in making, I just get a kick out of it to this day.
06:03Skip delivers leather once a week to Big Game,
06:06a company in Texas that makes nearly all the footballs for America's best college programs and 3,000 high schools.
06:13Welcome to the football wonderland.
06:16Chris Calandro founded the company in 1993.
06:20I'm a nutty professor type, and the things that we can change with the football is really limited to your imagination.
06:28Very few teams in college football and high school football use exactly the same spec that we build.
06:34Even the best cuts of Horween leather have small defects.
06:38So Big Game starts by cutting around them.
06:41We don't want to build a football and get to the end of the line and realize it's got an imperfection on it.
06:48Then we pretty much kill the football.
06:51Then workers cut it into four panels, which will form the outer layer of the ball.
06:57These are now married together forever.
07:01Unlike NFL teams, colleges are allowed to use different sized footballs.
07:06Big Game makes them in three different dimensions, depending on the player they're for.
07:11So we build things on the larger side.
07:14If you're a 6'5 pocket passer or if you're a 5'10 dual threat player, we might have a smaller ball for you.
07:21Even at this early stage, there's already been two major customizations from the quarterback.
07:27What size the ball's going to be and the leather that the quarterback chose.
07:32Then they add team logos, usually by stamping a metal press on a heated piece of metal foil.
07:44After some extra fabric and stitching, the panels are done.
07:49But right now, the football is inside out, and it has to be flipped around by hand.
07:54If you do it the wrong way, you damage the ball.
07:57Rodney's doing an outstanding job.
07:59It is as much about technique as it is about strength.
08:04I recently beat Rodney in an arm wrestling contest.
08:10Laces come in multiple textures and have to be added by hand too.
08:15Some are kind of have this rubbery feel.
08:17Some are sort of have a suede leathery feel.
08:22It is, I think, probably the one thing that quarterbacks are most passionate about is the way the laces feel.
08:29Eventually, workers stick the football into a wooden mold, where a computerized pump inflates it.
08:36We're using more pressure than is allowed so that we can push out all those seams and rough spots.
08:45Big Game makes about a thousand balls a day, even during the football offseason.
08:51For $10, an employee will spend a few hours conditioning a ball to make it feel broken in.
08:57Some little things to help get the leather to feel great, like a nice pair of shoes or a bag or something.
09:07But Dan charges up to $70 per ball because they're customized for specific players.
09:13How do you grip the ball? What do you like on the ball? Do you want it tackier? Do you want it softer? Do you want a combination?
09:19Ohio State, his biggest client, flies him in each season to meet with coaches and quarterbacks.
09:25Ultimately, it comes down to the quarterback, but there are a lot of people that are going to have say in it because they want to be educated. They want to be on top of it.
09:35After Dan's done softening the leather, he applies heat.
09:39This causes the leather conditioner and balm to bake into the ball.
09:43Too hot, you're going to burn the ball and dry it out. Not enough, it's going to be a little gummy.
09:48We found that sweet spot around 650, 700 degrees of a heat gun itself.
09:55Then he coats the ball in mud, which blends all the layers and helps protect the grip from rain or sweat.
10:03And again, bring out that richness color that so many people like.
10:07I like doing it by hand, making sure that it's completely being more or less massaged into the ball and spread evenly throughout.
10:16Ohio State specifically will ask to try to keep the stripes as clean as possible, so we don't mud over those stripes. That's not for everybody.
10:24Dan himself collects this mud from New Jersey riverbanks.
10:28You really want that milkshake, thick milkshake-like consistency.
10:33This is also the smelliest part of the process.
10:36It's an awful smell, specifically if it's raining outside and it's more humid.
10:40It's an acquired smell. I wouldn't invite people off the street to come smell it who aren't used to it.
10:45Sometimes it makes you question why you're working from home, but at the end of the day, it's a sign that we have a lot of business and it's thriving.
10:55He lets the mud dry for at least 12 hours, then brushes it clean.
11:03An electric brush wheel gets deep into the ball's crevices.
11:08You can just run the ball on the wheel itself, get that dust off.
11:17Then one final layer of conditioner.
11:20There's always those little frustrating dust spots. This helps just get that off so that it gives it a really clean, finished look.
11:32Now the 36-hour process is done.
11:35You can feel that tack, but it doesn't have any residue on your hands.
11:41Then they box the balls up and ship them.
11:46Shout out to Reuben and UPS and Keith, my guys.
11:52Summer is Gridiron's busiest season, but demand stays high throughout the year.
11:58The amount of footballs depends on the weather. Rain will kill a football.
12:01Usually a good equipment manager will have 24 to 48 footballs ready to go, and then they'll always send me 24 more so that they're always replenishing.
12:13Back in 2005, NFL quarterbacks couldn't use their own footballs in every game.
12:18The home team supplied all the balls, so visiting quarterbacks were stuck with whatever they were given.
12:23If I have a ball and I have my hand on the ball and maybe that index finger is slipping a little bit or that thumb is not secure, that's what you're going to be thinking about.
12:33Then in 2006, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning helped convince the league to change the rules, allowing all quarterbacks to use their own footballs on offense.
12:44This eventually inspired college programs like Arizona State to take football prep seriously, too.
12:50The team needs 80 footballs for just one practice, and it's essential that every single one is broken in.
12:58For official games, the team's equipment manager, Arthur Hussard, selects 12 of the quarterbacks' favorites.
13:05We give those 12 footballs to the referees, and the referees check them, mark them, and make sure we can play with those.
13:14But do these mudded footballs really make a difference?
13:17Dan thinks they can help keep players focused on the game itself.
13:21You put on a pair of shoes, you know they're comfortable because you're not worried about them.
13:25So our goal is to have them never think about the security of the football.
13:29When it's in their hands, it's to what they want it to be.
13:32But he says he can't substitute for game preparation.
13:36A guy throws a perfect spiral in the corner of the end zone, he probably threw that ball well before he had a ball prepared.
13:42But if there's a comfortability to him, hey, maybe I had something to do with it.
13:47The strangest preference I've ever gotten is somebody who literally told me that the ball smelled funny.
13:52And that it bothered him when he had it up on his, you know, ready to throw, and that he was wondering if I could do anything to help him with that.
14:01So we got creative, and we literally put like essential oil in the mud, and we're like mixing it in so that it had a nicer aroma.
14:09So we got creative, and we literally put essential oil in the mud, and we're like mixing it in so that it had a nicer aroma.