Soccer balls ⚽️ are made with a bunch of hexagons
Baseballs ⚾️ and Tennis Balls 🎾 have two a rounded hourglass shapes
Basketballs 🏀 have their own weird thing going on
Volleyballs 🏐 have the rectangles
Why aren’t there soccer balls with the volleyball pattern? Why not make a baseball out of hexagons?
In: Other
Everyone else has mentioned aerodynamics, grips and consistency, and those are all 100% reasons for it.
Another factor people haven’t touched on is that different balls are made for different purposes, and that changes their design. The different purposes have different stresses, different demands, different expected lifespans and all of that results in designs made differently to handle those different expectations out of vastly different materials. The different materials also need to be connected together, which leads to different bonds and stitches, or completely different manufacturing processes. Bowling balls for example have no visible seam because a seam would change the roll down the smooth, oiled alley.
On lifespan, it’s reasonable for a soccer match ball to last long beyond the duration of a single match and will be reused if still meeting the requirements, whilst in baseball, a ball is barely expected to last a half-inning. A pro tennis player may get 7 or so games (less than the average set in a tennis match, maybe an hour or so of play) out of a set of balls.
In baseball and basketball, grip is an important factor. Not just how you grip a ball, but how much grip you have on the ball. The material and stitching impact that. This is less of a concern for tennis and soccer.
A baseball stitched like a soccer ball will behave differently in comparison to a traditionally stitched baseball. This would change how the game is played, which changes how the game is viewed. The people in charge of that, the largest governing bodies for each sport set the rules of what a ball looks like because it’s one of the many ways they can influence how the game is played. Keeping the stitching and look the same is also a concern when it comes to branding, another factor governing bodies look to maintain. A standardised look, a standardised ball for standardised play across the whole of the sport.
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