How much do NFL footballs and MLB baseballs cost? Are they any better than what you can walk into a sporting goods store and buy?
I found this difficult to get good search results on. The most promising result was on Wiki Answers, but it answered the football question with an unadorned “$700” so I don’t know how reliable that is, and it sounds ridiculously high.
$6 or so for an MLB quality baseball, and that’s discounting bulk purchasing.
Huerta is right. That’s the retail price and you can buy them from any major sporting goods retailer. It’s the same stuff that is supplied to the pro teams.
Just keep in mind. Pro football, baseball and basketball players don’t like to play with mint condition balls. Check the other thread about how many footballs are used in a game.
In baseball the umpires are required to “rub down”, with a special mud, 72 balls before each game. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_does_the_mud_umpires_rub_on_baseballs_before_games_come_from
It takes about a month of use for a basketball to be properly broken in. The referees select out the balls before a game. The NBA tried to go to a ball with a synthetic cover. They used it for a few months and there was a player revolt.
In hockey, the pucks have to be frozen before the game to deaden them.