Why do spherical sports balls have different stitch patterns for each sport? Why don’t they mix it up?

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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?

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11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They did actually change this design in a prominent way in soccer. The 2010 world cup used a new ball called the Adidas Jabulani, which boasted eight round panels and a special surface texture designed to improve aerodynamics. The hilarious and unintended consequence of this was that it made the ball’s trajectory really difficult to predict, basically causing it to fly like a knuckleball with every kick. Everyone hated it, it was widely criticized, and led to a lot of extra goals.

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