# Price/quality of pro balls

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 10, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995 "2008-09-10T21:04:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995/1 "2008-09-10T21:04:00Z")

</div>

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.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995/2 "2008-09-10T21:05:40Z")

</div>

> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> 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.

It’s ridiculous.

$89.

[http://www.modells.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=1897640&cp=711652](http://www.modells.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=1897640&cp=711652)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995/3 "2008-09-10T21:07:25Z")

</div>

$6 or so for an MLB quality baseball, and that’s discounting bulk purchasing.

[http://www.modells.com/product/index.jsp?productId=967739&cp=711608.1864988.1929022&parentPage=family](http://www.modells.com/product/index.jsp?productId=967739&cp=711608.1864988.1929022&parentPage=family)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/price-quality-of-pro-balls/462995/4 "2008-09-10T22:28:20Z")

</div>

**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](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.