You’ll Never Look at a Football the Same Way Again!
Published Friday February 11, 2022
When quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Matthew Stafford take to the field this Sunday, all eyes will be on their ability to fire the football with near-lethal accuracy. Being avid football fans, Kinetic Vision’s Metrology + Inspection group decided to see just what a football was made of. Using state-of-the-art Computed Tomography scanning technology, the team created a ‘slice-through’ visual movie of an NFL® football. The result? It’s actually not as spherical as you’d think!
“Footballs are designed as a prolate spheroid, which is perfect for throwing and carrying. What we found through scanning is that the ball is actually much more asymmetric than expected,” said Alex Doukas, Group Manager of Kinetic Vision’s Metrology + Inspection Group.
Kinetic Vision decided to share the football scans since the company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio and nearly every last person in the city is rooting for the Cincinnati Bengals®. “It’s a big moment for our city, and we’re really excited to share this unique view of an NFL football,” said Doukas. The Cincinnati Bengals have not had a Super Bowl® appearance since 1988. “When you look at the natural imperfections of a hand-stitched ball, you have a whole new respect for the quarterbacks and their ability to control the ball,” said Doukas, adding with a smile, “of course our quarterback, Joe Burrow, will control the ball just a little better and we’re pretty sure we’ll be holding the trophy at the end of the game!”
For more information, please visit Kinetic Vision Metrology + Inspection. For a brief and fascinating history of how the football shape evolved, see the Time Magazine article on the subject.
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