- [Narrator] The smell of the leather,
the sound of the swish,
the sight of the perfect spiraling pass.
Today, 70% of Americans call themselves sports fans
and the big three sports rake in
a combined $38 billion a year,
but they would never exist
without the inventions of two young visionaries.
- They literally made balls
out of whatever materials they had.
- These guys revolutionized the baseball,
created the mitt, a football,
and the first ever basketball.
- These guys build the foundation for the games
that we know and love today,
and those giants are named Wilson and Spalding.
- [Narrator] They'll turn primitive games
- You would throw the ball at the person to get them out.
- [Narrator] Broken noses, bloody faces,
eyes being poked out.
- [Narrator] that are played without equipment
- Catchers were taking the fast balls
right into the palm of their bare hand.
- [Scott] You'd have 9, 10, 11 people killed every year.
- [Narrator] into a new industry
enjoyed all over the globe.
- The balls are everywhere:
the official supplier of NBA, WNBA,
NFL, US Open Tennis.
- [Narrator] and create their own
multi-billion dollar empires in the process.
- People know all those brands,
but they don't know the origin stories.
(crowd cheering)
(intense music)
(upbeat rock music)
- [Narrator] Today, the sports industry rakes in
almost half a trillion dollars
with sporting goods equipment alone
pulling in 52 billion.
- There they go!
- [Narrator] But a little more than a century ago,
America's favorite sports barely exist.
- Sports in America in the mid 19th century
were a pale shadow of what they are now.
There was horse racing, hunting, and fishing,
essentially the century old sports that had existed
since time immemorial, like boxing, like cricket.
- [Narrator] Two of modern America's biggest sports,
basketball and football, haven't been invented.
And in the 1850s, one game is still a largely
northeast phenomenon known as the New York game,
until war breaks out.
- The Civil War, believe it or not,
actually spread the game.
The soldiers would actually play the game.
They'd teach the game to other soldiers during the war.
They would take it home and it spread.
- [Narrator] And now, baseball is becoming so popular
the teams are able to sell tickets to their games.
- The first professional team came about
in Cincinnati, 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings.
- [Narrator] Other teams soon follow Cincinnati's lead,
but being a pro baseball player at the time
is completely different than today.
- [Narrator] As late as the 1870s, a baseball player,
they didn't collect a big enough paycheck to survive.
You had to have a day job as well.
- [Narrator] In 1876,
one such player is a pitcher
for the Chicago White Stockings.
His name is Albert Goodwill Spalding.
His early career is spent with the Boston Red Stockings
where he wins 80% of the games he pitches.
Then, the owner of the Chicago White Stockings
lures him to the Windy City's team,
promising him a full one quarter of the gate earnings.
- [Narrator] A.G. Spalding is one of the biggest superstars
in baseball of his era:
the LeBron James and the Michael Jordan of his day.
- [Narrator] Spalding will help build
a whole new industry from scratch
and one day become the largest sporting goods maker
in America, bringing in over $300 million a year.
But his name won't just be written
on billions of baseballs.
His contributions will help create the modern games
of baseball, football, and basketball.
But right now, baseball is a far cry
from what we know today.
- Baseball back then was not the standardized sport
that we know today.
The fields were different sizes.
Before games, the teams would kind of debate
which rules they would use.
- [Narrator] Games aren't limited to nine innings;
the winning team is the first to score 21 runs.
Umpires are picked from the crowd at the start of the game
and they call strikes but not balls.
- There are no strike zones. The games lasted forever.
- [Narrator] It's not uncommon for pitchers
to throw wide 40 or 50 times
hoping the batter would just get frustrated
and swing at a bad pitch.
Pitchers pitch underhand
and fly balls can be caught for an out after one bounce.
- You'd throw the ball at the person to get them out.
It was called plugging or soaking.
- [Narrator] Plugging injuries are common
but seen as making the sport more manly.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] And for A.G. Spalding, he believes the game's
lack of uniformity in one key aspect is holding it back.
- Spalding knows the game intimately.
He recognizes that the balls themselves are inconsistent.
- [Narrator] All pitchers at the time used
their own baseballs created with their own specifications.
- They literally made balls
out of whatever materials they had,
cow hide or buck skin, and they would sew 'em together,
and inside would be whatever they had,
rubber or cork, horse hair or bird feathers.
- It'd be the size of a softball, size of a tennis ball;
the batter had no idea what was coming at him.
- It was kind of a total crapshoot for these athletes.
- Some games, you get a ball that was rock solid
and you'd be able to hit it farther.
Other games, you get this soft little wimpy baseball
that you can barely hit a ground ball.
- [Narrator] Suddenly, the 26-year-old Spalding
doesn't just see a chance to fix baseball,
but an opportunity to forge a new industry.
- Spalding recognizes that there needs
to be some standardization here,
but if he could standardize that,
it'd make the game better,
but more importantly, make him a lot of money.
- [Narrator] With the help of his brother, Walter,
Spalding sets out to make a uniform baseball.
- You know, there's a great quote and Steve Jobs said,
"Sometimes people don't know what they want
until you show them,"
and A.G. Spalding was certainly a believer in that motto.
He felt like he knew exactly
how to make the perfect baseball.
- [Narrator] Drawing on the balls Spalding uses himself,
they experiment with several prototypes.
- The rubber core, burlap cording, and yarn.
This one, a cork core and fabric yarn.
- [Narrator] Spalding experiments with replacing
the most common cores used at the time,
horsehair and feathers,
and instead tries rubber cores
surrounded by wool yarn and a layer of cow hide leather.
- He wanted a ball that had a more tightly wound core,
which would send the ball farther.
He even had it down to the specific number
of yards of wool yarn that had to be used:
369 yards of wool yarn inside that baseball.
And if there was any yarn left over
or if there wasn't enough, the ball was rejected.
- [Narrator] To enclose the core,
early baseballs used stitching called a lemon peel pattern
where four sides of a single piece of leather
are sewn into an X.
- The problem was by the later innings, it would fall apart.
The stitching would come out.
Literally, you could knock the cover off the ball
if you hit the ball hard enough, so they were not good.
- [Narrator] Spalding opts for a newer figure-eight pattern
where two equal size pieces could be stitched together
tighter and more evenly.
The same pattern is still used in baseballs today.
- You gotta love A.G. Spalding.
I mean, he was so specific in what he wanted.
I mean, this guy was a perfectionist,
and that's probably why he was so successful.
- [Narrator] For the final step,
he brands the baseball with the name of his new company.
But now, he'll have to convince everyone
that they should be using his baseball,
and Spalding sees an opportunity to do just that
when eight teams come together to form an association
known as the National League.
Throughout the 19th century,
several small professional leagues
pop up around the country.
Most only last a few years, but in 1876,
one called the National League promises to be different.
- When the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs
comes into existence, the National League comes out
with this rule book.
This means that whether you're playing in Ohio or Georgia,
the game is gonna be the same, and that's important.
It's an important moment because it standardizes the game,
but it opens up the possibility for someone to come in
and say, "Well, now that the game is standardized,
shouldn't there be a standard ball?"
and that is A.G. Spalding.
- [Narrator] Spalding pitches the new league
on a way to guarantee a consistent performance
by using an official ball.
- This is a startup league,
so money isn't exactly flowing like it is today;
so the league is not really taking
what A.G. and Walter are selling.
- [Narrator] The league rejects his offer,
but refusing to back down,
Spalding instead proposes a bold new deal,
one that will cost him money.
- They believed in their product so much, they say,
"We're gonna give you the baseballs for free Season 1
to show you how good these balls are."
You're gonna give something away for free. Is that insane?
- [Narrator] The league agrees to use the baseballs
free of charge for one season.
And the Spalding Brothers baseball is introduced
as the league's official ball
during the first league game in 1876.
- Now everybody's playing with the same ball, same size,
and it really changed the way the game is played.
- The game is a lot more lively.
The ball's hitting further.
The fans liked it. The players liked it.
It worked.
- [Narrator] But soon, the new baseballs are creating
a problem for players, one that Spalding never imagined.
- In 1877, he becomes a victim of his own invention
because the ball now is a little bit harder.
- [Narrator] In 1877, the game is played
without one essential piece of protective equipment,
and now catching Spalding's harder, faster ball
is a painful practice.
Injuries are increasing.
Broken fingers and bleeding hands are now commonplace
and some are wondering if the new balls
are too dangerous to play with.
But Spalding isn't done inventing yet,
and his new solution could further modernize the game,
but players aren't going to like it.
By 1877, the game of baseball is getting faster,
thanks in part to one man.
(rock music)
Pitcher A.G. Spalding has developed a newer
more tightly wound baseball that is taking over the game,
but the ball is taking its toll on players
who are missing a key piece of equipment
that's commonplace today.
- Catchers were taking the brunt of the pitchers' fastballs
right into the palm of their bare hands.
Now, we're talking about catchers
who would catch the pitchers' pitches on a hop
simply because it wouldn't hurt as much.
- [Narrator] Glove wearing is seen as a sign of weakness.
Even players nursing hand injuries
are ridiculed for wearing gloves,
and players refer to them as sissy mittens.
- Everyone else was like,
"I don't want anything to do with the glove.
It's my masculinity. It's machoism."
- It was frowned upon. It was a sign of weakness.
People would be like, "Who's this wimp out there
playing the game?"
- [Narrator] Spalding knows that if he can create a glove,
he might be able to save players hands,
allowing them to keep using his baseballs.
- Give me a pair of scissors.
Scissors.
- [Narrator] But he'll also have to convince players
to wear them;
so Spalding sets out to design a homemade glove of his own
to wear during games.
- It was like a work glove
like the railroad brakemen put on.
- This was just a simple glove
like you would wear driving a car.
It's not the glove that we see today on the field.
- For tomorrow's game.
- [Narrator] In 1877, Spalding steps out onto the field
donning his handmade glove.
- He comes out there and he owns it.
He was someone that people looked up to.
He has a glove on to protect his hand.
- [Narrator] News of Spalding's endorsement of glovewearing
quickly spreads throughout the ranks of pro players.
- Spalding basically gave everyone the nod
that you could now wear a glove
because he was so well-respected.
- Spalding's own celebrity in the game of baseball
really helped him promote this.
This was someone who was already a kind of trusted voice
saying, "Hey, I know how to make the game better.
I'm already doing this."
- It went from having this stigma
to where more and more players started wearing gloves.
- [Narrator] Soon, the idea of a baseball player
wearing a glove becomes respectable
- Strike!
as players all around the National League
see its potential.
- They could see the need
for their best player to stay on the field
rather than sitting on the bench in a bandage.
- [Narrator] With the increased interest in glovewearing,
Spalding sees a new opportunity.
- Being the great entrepreneur that he is,
he decides to capitalize on this glove thing.
- [Narrator] The brothers get to work
improving A.G.'s makeshift design.
To reduce ball impact where it hits hardest,
they sow a dense pad and extra layer of leather
into the palm.
- I think we're nearly there.
- [Narrator] Later, they'll extend the fingers
to create more protection.
Spalding now has a second product to sell to pro players
and to the general public.
- Spalding gets credit really for manufacturing
the first baseball glove.
And when you call it a glove,
don't think about what you see today.
- [Narrator] With no webbing between the thumb
and forefinger, the glove is notably different
than its modern day counterpart.
- It was safer, it made the game better,
and it just kind of took off from there.
- [Narrator] Spalding's glove is a hit
and takes baseball to a whole new level.
Off the success of his glove and his ball,
Spalding opens a brick and mortar store in Chicago
and will eventually go on to open 13 more.
- Now every kid in America could buy a Spalding baseball,
the same one that the pros were using.
- [Narrator] Not only do Spalding stores
sell sports equipment,
but also literature on how to play
the growing list of sports in America.
- They move quickly from baseball
to every sport imaginable.
There is a Spalding manual on every sport,
but more importantly for Spalding
their Spalding equipment.
- [Narrator] Spalding's success in creating
not only the first official baseball,
but establishing the use of gloves
secures his place in baseball history.
But as Spalding devotes more and more time
to his growing new business,
he decides his time on the field is at an end,
and in August of 1878, he plays his final game.
- He retires from the game of baseball at the age of 27
and decides he's gonna spend his time
really getting into the sporting goods business.
- [Narrator] By the 1890s, Spalding is a multimillionaire
and widely recognized beyond baseball
as an authority in all things sports in America.
- It's just kind of crazy because not only has Spalding
essentially created the modern sporting goods industry,
but also the modern foundation for the games
that we know and love today.
- [Narrator] He's so highly regarded that in 1894,
a gym teacher named James Naismith seeks out Spalding
looking to create a ball for a new indoor game
he's just invented.
(engaging music)
In 1894, A.G. Spalding is at the forefront
of the sporting goods industry.
After designing the first official baseball
and popularizing playing with a glove,
Spalding is regarded as a true sports innovator,
and a college gym teacher from Springfield, Massachusetts
named James Naismith comes to Spalding
with a new game he's just invented.
- Two teams throwing the ball into the basket.
Why don't we take turns?
Here, stand over there.
- [Narrator] Naismith calls the game basketball.
- Dr. James Naismith was a Canadian
and he came to America and basically was a gym teacher.
- Okay, back up a little further.
- Okay.
- His boss said, "You gotta come up with something
'cause we've got nothing to do with these kids.
All they do right now is gymnastics
and they're getting sick of 'em" right.
So he said, "Come up with something that these
hyperactive competitive boys can play in the wintertime."
- [Narrator] Forced to stay inside
during cold New England winters,
Naismith wants a fun game for his students to play.
- So he takes these two peach baskets,
nails them up on either end of this gymnasium.
There was a track that went around the top
that happened to be 10 feet high.
- [Narrator] Today, the NBA alone brings in
$10 billion a year in revenue,
(crowd shouting)
and even college basketball
dominates baseball in the TV ratings
with the final four drawing over 36 million viewers.
- That's it. - All right!
- You got it. - I like this one, this is good.
- [Narrator] But back in 1892,
it's just a way for Naismith's students to kill time.
- It's crazy that they used soccer balls
to play basketball, but this isn't the ideal ball
in terms of how the game is evolving.
- The idea is you don't run with the ball.
- [Narrator] And now as Naismith's game
is catching on outside his college,
he sees players attempting to skirt the rules.
- Students knew that you couldn't move with the ball,
what today we would call traveling.
And so they would hold the ball, bounce it,
and then run a little bit, pick it up,
bounce it, and run a little bit.
And they realized like, "Oh, this is dribbling."
- Do we dribble with two hands?
- Dribble with two hands. Yeah, give it a try, it's a...
(man laughs)
- [Narrator] The added movement makes
the game more exciting.
- It requires some force, but we'll redesign the ball.
- [Narrator] Naismith realizes that if basketball players
are going to dribble, they'll need something better
than the soccer ball they currently use.
- So what do you think?
- Yeah, I think it could work.
- I think it could work.
- I think we got a good sport on our hands.
- [Narrator] Spalding agrees to help out.
- Keep in mind it is the very infancy of the sport,
and Spalding decides he's gonna help with the dribbling
and come out with the basketball for it.
Confident man. You gotta love him.
- [Narrator] Spalding gets to work
in his attempt to create the first ever basketball.
- He realized that he had to have a ball with bounce.
I mean, this is not a small endeavor, right?
It's not like he's taking the path of least resistance.
He's solely focused on creating the perfect basketball
and he will go to great lengths to make sure
that that happens.
- [Narrator] A soccer ball's bounce is dampened
by small air gaps between the surface leather
and the inner bladder.
This makes it easier for players
to control the ball with their feet.
Spalding does away with these design elements
in his basketball,
making the ball firmer and giving it the bounce it needs
for the new game.
(intense music)
(man sighs)
- Damn it.
- [Narrator] But soon, Spalding notices a problem
with the harder ball.
The smooth leather becomes slick when players' hands sweat.
- Damn it.
(shelf items clank)
What's not right?
- It is slippery as you can imagine, right?
Not good. It's going through the player's hands.
It's just...It didn't work.
- [Narrator] If Spalding wants to stay on top,
he knows he needs another success outside of baseball,
and his best chance is taking another swing
at constructing the first ever basketball.
At the dawn of the 20th century,
A.G. Spalding's sporting goods empire
has already revolutionized baseball.
And now, he has his sight set on inventing a ball
for a promising new sport its inventor calls basketball.
- So he comes out with this prototype basketball:
it's 32 inches in diameter,
it has that rubber bladder on the inside, it bounces well.
But there's only one problem:
it is slippery as you could imagine, right.
- [Narrator] Spalding experiments with several ways
to get more grip on his ball
by creating different textures and surfaces.
- He has this eureka moment.
He realizes that basketball is a free flowing sport
and that the entire surface of the ball
has to be grippable.
Otherwise, it won't work.
- [Narrator] After several attempts,
he tries a stamping process on the ball's outer layer.
Similar to embossing, it creates raised bumps
on the ball's surface.
- If you look at a current basketball,
you see all these tiny little bumps on there, right.
That's called pebbling,
and that makes the ball more grippable, right, less slippery,
yet it will still bounce quite well.
- [Narrator] And in 1894, the basketball is born.
Spalding releases the world's first basketball
selling it for $6,
nearly $200 in today's money.
- Today, we'll buy something from Spalding
without ever stopping to go,
"Oh wait, there were people there.
There were people that created these things."
Without Spalding, you just simply
wouldn't have the baseballs we knew today,
we wouldn't have the basketballs we know today.
- Spalding is literally setting this gold standard
in every sport.
Within two years, the Spalding basketball will become
the ball adopted by the College Basketball Association.
- [Narrator] The organization will go on
to become the NCAA.
And now,
Spalding's ball makes bouncing in rapid succession possible
and dribbling becomes part of the game of basketball.
In 1897, Yale becomes the first team
to dribble for a full game.
- We wouldn't have dribbling today if we didn't have
Spalding's innovation with the basketball,
and that's why we have the basketball that we have today.
- [Narrator] By the turn of the 20th century,
Spalding has helped create
two of America's most enduring sports
and made a fortune along the way.
His company stands at the forefront
of a burgeoning sporting goods industry.
But in 1915, tragedy strikes.
- So at the age of 66,
A.G. Spalding dies suddenly of a stroke,
and that poses a problem for the company, right.
He is the singular leader of this company.
He's the visionary of this company.
- [Narrator] With A.G. Spalding no longer
at the helm of his company,
competitors see an opportunity to take on
the virtual sporting goods monopoly he's created,
like two St. Louis brothers who burst onto the scene
with a totally new type of baseball glove.
- The glove put something here,
which formed a pocket that the ball could go into.
- [Narrator] The Rawlings Brothers glove
soon takes over baseball.
- The Rawlings glove revolutionized the game.
Hot grounders, fast line drives, long flies;
nothing gets past the glove.
- [Narrator] And as Rawlings' gloves supplants Spalding's,
another new competitor is about to emerge
from an unlikely place.
With the country ensnared in World War I,
Sulzberger & Sons, a failing meat packing company,
is in desperate need of an image change.
- It's 1916.
Both anti-semitism and anti-German sentiment was at
very high levels during this period in the United States.
You couldn't even call sauerkraut sauerkraut.
People called it liberty cabbage.
And it is a moment when lots of entrepreneurs who are Jewish
are actually choosing non-Jewish names.
- [Narrator] To rebrand, they look to hire new leadership
and change the name of the company.
- Sulzberger & Sons recognize they need to make a change.
They see a rising star in a competing company,
a guy by the name of Thomas Wilson,
and we need a name change;
and so they tap Wilson to come over and run their company.
And why is Wilson so attractive?
Well, he's personable enough,
but he's also got the name Wilson,
which also happens to be the name
of the sitting U.S. president.
- President Wilson is very popular at that time,
so they decide to change their name to Wilson.
They feel this is a kind of failsafe branding decision.
- Thomas E. Wilson was a hard-nosed Canadian businessman.
He grew up in Chicago.
His family moved there when he was about nine years old.
It was tough times.
He started out, he worked his way up
into the meat packing industry.
- [Narrator] Wilson & Co. will become
a powerhouse in the sporting goods industry,
innovating equipment and modernizing multiple sports
in the process.
But in 1916, Thomas Wilson is just trying to prove
he can turn the company around.
And as Wilson digs in at his new company,
he discovers a small operation making products
from animal parts leftover from processing.
- Well look at that.
- A division that essentially made
sporting equipment from animal byproducts:
using horsehair to make baseballs,
sinew and gut to make the strings for tennis rackets.
- [Narrator] It's a division that will turn Wilson
into a $5.2 billion company,
producing a range of athletic equipment,
like 275,000 tennis balls every day.
But first, he'll have to help change the fate
of a new sport that's popping up on college campuses
using a ball produced by the Spalding company.
- It was really a kind of ritual of violent masculinity.
- [Scott] I mean, you had people getting killed.
(intense music)
- [Narrator] In 1919, Thomas Wilson is looking to reinvent
a once dominant meat packing company
- Well look at that.
- [Narrator] by pivoting its business model
into an unlikely area:
sporting goods.
- They say necessity is the mother of invention.
Thomas Wilson, he really saw an opportunity there,
so he decided, "Let's make this a priority."
- [Narrator] Wilson green lights several sports products
including a catcher's mitt,
but finds that Spalding's baseball products
rule the marketplace.
But as the Spalding and Rawlings company
are continually dominating baseball,
Wilson thinks he may have a bigger impact in a newer game
that's being played on college campuses.
- Bloody Monday was a Harvard University tradition.
This was a match between sophomores and freshmen,
but like broken noses, bloody faces,
eyes being poked out;
it was really a kind of ritual of violent masculinity.
(hard rock music)
- [Narrator] As the game grows during the late 1890s,
colleges like Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth
form their own teams,
and it becomes known by different names
like the Boston game, and mob football,
and eventually just football.
But the game is nothing like its modern day counterpart.
The rules are evolving, and it's being played
with a rugby ball made by the Spalding company.
- So many people take exception to the fact
that we in America call the game football,
but the cousin that our beloved gridiron game
comes from is rugby.
This game with kicking and lateral passes
became known as rugby or rugby football.
Well, that came over to America,
and in the early 1900s, this beautiful combination
that was football and rugby football was born,
and Sundays were never the same
or buffalo wings.
- [Narrator] But as football grows in popularity,
so too do the injuries.
- I mean, you had people getting killed.
You'd have 9, 10, 11 people killed every year,
and it was like, I don't wanna say it was no big deal,
but it was just normal.
- [Narrator] As fatal injuries
like broken necks and head trauma become the norm,
public outcry has colleges and legislatures
looking to ban the game.
- President Theodore Roosevelt actually brought in
the members of what were called the big three,
Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, to talk about it.
Roosevelt loved football. His son played for Harvard.
Some people thought he was trying to get rid of football,
but he was trying to save it really.
- [Narrator] After the meeting,
Roosevelt assures the nation that changes will be made.
Colleges including Princeton, Harvard,
Yale, Rutgers, and Brown
form a coalition that will one day be known as the NCAA
and draft new rules to make the game safer.
- The problem was what are called mass momentum plays.
Just get the person with the ball
and get five of the biggest guys around him
just to steamroll people;
well, this was extremely dangerous.
And this is obviously before pads, before helmets.
It was the way that most of the people were getting hurt.
- So one of the reforms is the introduction
of the forward pass.
- [Announcer] A smart quarterback knows when to pass.
There's Harman slinging it to Amoshansky for a touchdown.
- [Narrator] Before the forward pass,
the only way to get the ball down field to the goal line
was to run the ball through the entire defense.
Now, the forward pass allows the quarterback
to throw the ball down field to a receiver.
- Instead of having them steamroll people,
now you could throw the ball across the goal line.
- [Narrator] It's a play that will definitely distinguish
American football from its rugby origins.
But before the pass can take hold
as the cornerstone of the game that it is today,
there is one thing holding it back:
the ball.
- Now, one problem with the forward pass is that
if you're using a clunky rugby ball,
it doesn't go forward very easily.
- [Narrator] While the most popular ball is produced
by none other than the Spalding company,
the blunt edges and large pill-like shape
cause it to wobble and even tumble end-over-end
after a few yards in the air.
And now, Wilson sees a business opportunity.
If he can make a ball that players can actually throw,
he can open up a whole new market for his company.
So for help designing a ball, he looks to a college coach
who's had some success implementing the forward pass.
- Mr. Rockne?
Thomas Wilson.
- Knute Rockne, the acclaimed Notre Dame football coach
who had such an amazing career on the field
and an even greater impact off the field.
Rockne led Notre Dame to three national titles,
and he really got famous
for popularizing the forward pass in football.
- [Narrator] Rockne is constantly pushing
the boundaries of the passing game,
but his quarterbacks are severely limited
by how far they can throw the rugby ball.
- Listen,
you want to help me make a better football
than the Spalding?
- Knowing the game is changing
and these athletes need the proper equipment,
you need a sleeker more dynamic football,
and he made it a priority to do that.
- [Narrator] Diverting resources
and hiring expert leather craftsmen,
Wilson pours company funds into developing
the first football explicitly designed
to be thrown for a pass.
- Now, there's a risk to this, right?
It's a big investment at the time,
but he believes in it, right.
And there's an old saying,
"Entrepreneurs, they jump out of the airplane
and figure out how to open up the parachute
on the way down," and that's what Wilson was doing.
- [Narrator] Soon, Wilson is presented with a prototype.
- This is it.
- [Narrator] With a new narrower silhouette.
- What do you think?
(intense music)
- Well...
(pleasant music) - It's beautiful.
- [Narrator] The ball features a double lining
to help retain air and for added durability.
But the biggest change is the shape.
- [Scott] The shape was sleeker and more aerodynamic
conducive to that increased passing game.
- [Narrator] For the first time,
one of the most integral parts of modern football,
the tight spiral pass, is now possible.
Wilson names his new football after Knute Rockne, the KR,
and puts it on the market in 1924.
- It made a lot of sense because at that point
Wilson was still new to sporting goods manufacturing.
So you'd slap a KR on the football
and people are gonna know that's a Knute Rockne.
- [Narrator] After the ball's release,
that season Knute Rockne and Notre Dame
beat Stanford 27 to 10 in the Rose Bowl;
cementing the forward pass as the future of the game
and with more passing, gang tackling,
and pile ups decrease dramatically.
- After that, you don't have the fatalities
you had before that,
and the sheer number of people going to games
just skyrockets after that.
- [Narrator] After the football's success
revolutionizing the college game,
Wilson thinks his ball can help
a new professional start up football league
that just formed two years earlier.
- So he goes to the NFL with football legend Knute Rockne.
If they say yes, he is going to dominate this sport.
- They were like, "Hey, NFL, what about
this Knute Rockne ball?"
The NFL said, "No."
- [Narrator] The NFL tells Wilson
that they are content with their current ball
produced by one of the largest sporting goods companies
in the country.
- And they were like, "No, we're good.
We're gonna stick with Spalding."
- [Narrator] If Wilson wants his new sporting goods company
to be as big as Spalding and Rawlings,
he'll need to be more than just a college sensation;
Thomas Wilson will now have to draw a new play.
(catchy music)
By the 1930s, Thomas Wilson's football
has helped the proliferation of college football.
- The game was changing and it got more exciting
and it was faster.
- [Narrator] But the up and coming
professional football organization, the NFL,
refuses to use Wilson's revolutionary new football,
instead opting for Spalding's rounder rugby-like ball.
But despite being shut out of the NFL,
Wilson begins seeing success
in the sporting goods industry.
- And they shift their attention to another game:
golf.
- [Narrator] Throughout the 1930s,
Wilson builds a successful golf business
creating golf clubs, balls, and bags.
But behind the scenes, Wilson continues
to cultivate relationships within football,
hoping to find a way to bring his ball
to the professional circuit.
And in 1940, he begins an interesting relationship.
- At the time, the New York Giants were owned by Tim Mara.
- [Narrator] Mara has already won three NFL championships
and has an agenda of his own.
He's looking for ways to make the NFL stand out
from another professional football league,
one that's been luring away some of the NFL's best players,
the All-American Football Conference.
- So football's becoming more and more popular,
right, not to the level it is today,
but we're seeing leagues pop up, and the NFL says,
"We're gonna revolutionize the way we play football."
- [Narrator] While the All-American Football Conference
uses Spalding's ball,
Mara sees Wilson's newer more aerodynamic ball
as a way to give spectators a better show.
And in 1941, he brokers a deal to make Wilson's
the official NFL ball.
As a thank you, Wilson chooses a unique name for the ball
in honor of the Mara family.
- Tim Mara's son, Wellington Mara, had just been born.
He was actually named for the Duke of Wellington.
So as a little bit of a gesture of respect,
he said that each ball should be emblazoned with The Duke.
- [Narrator] The Duke remains the official ball
of the NFL today.
- The NFL uses The Duke in every game.
Every Super Bowl, you see Wilson
and you see The Duke stamped on every football.
People call Tom Brady the GOAT, but The Duke is undefeated.
- [Narrator] Wilson and Spalding continue to dominate
the sporting goods world
long after their founders pass on, forming the backbone
of a $31 billion sporting goods industry.
- These companies have been around for over a century,
evolving and at the forefront of the sporting goods.
- [Narrator] And even today, each company relentlessly buys
for the ultimate accolade,
the official ball of professional sports.
Each continues to jostle for the professional sports crown,
which is pro sports contracts.
In 1946, Wilson becomes the official ball of the NBA
and stays so for 37 years
until Spalding wins the contract in 1983,
holding it for another 37 years
until 2021 when Wilson takes it back.
In baseball, Spalding remains the official ball
of the major leagues for 101 years from 1876
until 1977 when Rawlings wins the contract.
And after perfecting the modern webbed baseball glove,
Rawlings becomes their official glove as well.
- These names lost to history
as just brands without thinking about
the men that built sports in America.
And without them, you just simply wouldn't have
the sports that we know today.
So if you saw yourself as M.J.
hitting one from outside the arc,
saw yourself as Randy Johnson
throwing an unbelievable heater across the plate,
or found your own inner Tom Brady or Dan Marino,
we play, we exist on the shoulders of giants,
and those giants are named Wilson and Spalding.