Hard to find good cites, but scroll down to Jun 24,1930. Arthur Porto was my wife’s maternal grandfather! Pretty neat.
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Wrigley_Field&page=chronology
True, but you need to take volume into consideration. NFL teams are required to have 48 balls on hand for a game (36 regular and 12 kicking). Using the dollar amount provided by Huerta88 of $90 per ball, that comes out to $4320 per game. Multiply that by 8 (number of home games) and you get $34,560 per season for each team.
Home teams in MLB are required to provide 90 baseballs per game. Using Huerta88’s source (amazon.com) an MLB ball costs $20. Multiply that by 90 and that comes out to $1800 per home game. Multiply that by 81 (number of home games) and that comes out to $145,800 per season for each team.
Unless the NFL is hemmoraging money (they’re not) I don’t think cost is a factor.
I’m not sure that’s a valid analysis Cell Guy. Does the NFL reuse the balls they retreive from the stands? If so, then they’d need more balls per game than they prepare now.
Wow, no wonder all official MLB baseballs are made on the cheap at a factory in Costa Rica.
On the other hand, all official NFL footballs are made in a factory in Ohio. Here’s a neat video of the factory.
This one should do better in the game room. Moved.
samclem, Moderator
That was a nice thing to hear. Good for the Gophers.
This makes the NFL, and most big colleges, look downright miserly. I don’t care if the ball costs $90 or whatever. They spend huge amounts of money on everything and they charge outrageous prices that make it almost impossible for a family to go enjoy a game, and they’re going to whine about losing a few footballs per game? A dozen balls per game?
Every time I see that net go up or a fan forced to throw the ball back, it’s like watching some rich guy have his minions search everyone in the room to find the penny he dropped.
And it isn’t like “keep it” is unusual to baseball. If a puck goes into the stands in the NHL, as they are prone to do, you get to keep it.
If in fact they’re doing it to avoid violence - and I do not know for a fact that that is the reason, but just supposing - then might I suggest the NFL needs to look at the problem of violence in their crowds, NOT be miserly about the odd football.
If teams are only required to carry 12 K-balls per game, I could see that there might be an outside chance of running out of them during the course of a game–a very outside chance, but one nonetheless. A few field goals miss the net, a couple punts get shanked into the stands, a kickoff or three reaches the first row…now you’re down to your last couple of K-balls. I know that in the 1940 NFL Championship Game, infamously won 73-0 by the Chicago Bears, that officials asked the Bears to run or pass for their last two PATs because they’d lost too many balls already and didn’t want to run out. I don’t think the NFL would want that scenario repeated.
I just don’t buy it. We’re talking about organizations that spend millions and millions on everything from player salaries to Gatorade cups, but they can’t keep a whole crate of their oh-so-special footballs in the storage room? Do they order a new batch every week, eagerly wait for the UPS truck to show on game day, and go to the field with exactly the number they think they’ll need?
It’s not like this is the local rec league football team in a small town, funded by the $10 membership fees. Yeah, those guys, I’d gladly throw their ball back. The NFL? It’s certainly their prerogative but it make them look cheap, cheap, cheap and very unfriendly to the fans.
The K-balls aren’t looked after by the team, exactly; the home team is required to provide the brand-new manufacturer-sealed balls to the officials, who mark the balls with a “K” and keep them in their own locker room (so that no one can tamper with them). So, recovering the balls after a kick into the stands is probably partly so that the officials can ensure that no one is messing with them, filling them with helium or whatever (yes, I saw the Mythbusters episode, but people will try anything). Gotta ensure uniformity, ya know.
I’ll repeat what I wrote up tread. The NFL doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the $50 ball. And they have more than enough, so they aren’t going to run out.
This isn’t about money or the cost of the ball.
What they are about is violence in the stands. They don’t want replays of drunk fan one with beating on drunk fan two with a bloody face all over sports center. That’s all this is about.
They have come to the realization that when a WR hans a ball to little Timmy in the wheel chair, a fight isn’t going to break out
Doesn’t say much for NFL fans.
And what about the big SEC universities and such (not the community college with a tiny budget)? Those crowds typically are not on a hair trigger for violence and most college stadiums don’t allow alcohol. Those schools still want their balls back.
Maybe they can make the money argument with more of a straight face, though still, we’re talking about a lot of money passing through those programs.
My mom had season tickets in the end zone for the Patriots for over 30 years. Occasionally a kick would miss the screen and and up in the stands and security would come and take it.
Once in the late '90s or 2000 she was watching the game and the net got snagged and the field goal kick landed right in her lap. It was a cold game and she was wearing a big coat, so she immediately stuck it under her coat and pretended to look around for it. The guys around her saw exactly what happened, but they had known her for years and years so when security came asking for the ball, everyone was like “What ball? We didn’t see any ball” so they gave up.
Later in the week she waited outside the stadium after practice and got Drew Bledsoe to sign it :). She’s got it displayed in her living room.
We have baseball fans falling out of the stands to their deaths, and knocking over little kids in their quest for a foul ball. For a ball worth a fraction of a football, where 100x as many wind up in the stands over the course of a season.
The only reason there aren’t near riots in an effort to get a football, is the fact that security will always take it away from you. The only way to get out with a football is to have it given to you by a player, or successfully hide it, neither of which involve pushing and shoving.
Nope. Sure doesn’t.
With tailgating, beer sales, the end zone seats being some of the cheaper tickets, it’s a recipe for trouble. And the NFL doesn’t want to buy that trouble so that Don six-pack can get a football. They do care about the NFL image.
The Cowboys are worth $1.85 billion. That’s billion with a ‘b.’
Does anyone really think he cares about the $50 for the football?
K-balls that stay within the field of play are reused. I can’t find anything regarding the reuse of balls recovered from the stands.
EPL fans: I assume balls sent into the stands are returned.
Typically, yes, and without much problem (from what I’ve seen on tv). There are plenty of ballboys along the pitch, presumably with additional balls as needed, but if the ball goes in the stands, play usually won’t continue until it’s returned, so it makes sense to get it back quickly. The extra balls seem to be used more for when a ball goes out of play and keeps rolling down away from the player that he’ll get a new ball so they can return to action more quickly. That’s also more likely at the end of the game when that player’s team is tied or behind.
That’s a pretty rare thing. I’ve been to a lot of baseball games and seen a lot of baseballs hit into the stands and one rarely sees trouble.