How the Wilson Football Found Its Way Into the NFL's Biggest Game

How an Ohio sporting goods brand found its way into the NFL's biggest game.

- Robert Klara

On the Sunday night of the AFC and NFC championships, hours after the Broncos beat the Patriots and the Cardinals shut down the Packers, the lights were burning at 217 Liberty Street in Ada, Ohio. Located at that address is the factory where Wilson Sporting Goods makes regulation NFL footballs - 4,000 a day, 700,000 a year. But on that Sunday night, a core group of Wilson’s craftspeople were working on the year’s most important batch: the 200 balls (100 per squad) that would be sent to the teams bound for the Super Bowl.

“We have part of the construction done the night before,” said Kevin Murphy, Wilson’s general manager of football. “But once the championship games are over, we take our best people, and they spend 18 hours finishing them up and getting them ready.”        

That all-night shift is as sacred to Wilson as the football is to the 49 percent of Americans who are fans of the sport. And in this case, one could not exist without the other. Wilson has been the NFL’s official ball for 75 years, and it’s made every football used in every Super Bowl.