How Many Footballs Are Used in an NFL Season? The Full Math

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Every NFL season runs on a mountain of leather that most fans never think about: at least 24,960 official game footballs, supplied by one factory in a small Ohio town, cut from steer hides tanned in Chicago. The per-game number alone is startling – 112 footballs supplied for a single NFL game, 88 for general play and 24 reserved for kicking.

Scale that up and the math gets fun. Each of the 32 teams receives 780 balls a year for games and practices. The Wilson factory in Ada, Ohio – sole maker of NFL balls since 1955, league partner since 1941 – produces more than half a million footballs annually across all levels. And one steer hide becomes roughly 10 to 12 of them.

Here’s the full count, level by level, and the supply chain behind every snap.

FOOTBALL BY THE NUMBERS
How Many Footballs Are Used in a Season?
Per game, per team, per season – the full math
PER GAME
112 footballs
88 for gameplay, 24 for kicking
PER TEAM, PER YEAR
780 balls
Covering games and practices
LEAGUE-WIDE
24,960+
Official NFL season supply from Wilson
FACTORY OUTPUT
500,000+
Balls made yearly in Ada, Ohio
The football count, level by level
From one game to the whole sport
Level The number
One NFL game 112 balls supplied – 88 for general gameplay plus 24 dedicated kicking balls
One team, one season 780 footballs – the annual allocation each club’s equipment staff receives for games and practices
The whole NFL season At least 24,960 official game balls league-wide, per NFL Football Operations – 780 x 32 teams
The Super Bowl Roughly 120 balls, including 54 prepared by each team plus dedicated kicking balls – laces marked with DNA ink to authenticate the real ones
Wilson’s total production More than 500,000 leather footballs a year from the Ada, Ohio factory – NFL, college and high school models combined
Where every NFL ball comes from
One factory, one leather house
Piece Detail
The factory Wilson Sporting Goods, Ada, Ohio (pop. ~6,000) – every NFL ball since 1955, handmade by a union workforce of roughly 120-140 craftspeople
The partnership Wilson has been the NFL’s exclusive football since 1941 – the longest supplier relationship in pro sports, extended through 2030
The leather Horween Leather Co. of Chicago – heavy steer hides, many from Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska ranches; one hide yields roughly 10-12 footballs
The name “The Duke” honors Wellington Mara, the late Giants owner nicknamed for the Duke of Wellington
The tech Since 2017, game balls carry an embedded chip that tracks speed, distance and location
BALL-COUNT FACTS
Not actually pigskin
NFL balls are cowhide – specifically heavy native steer leather. The “pigskin” nickname survives from the sport’s earliest inflated-bladder days.
The kicking balls are separate
The 24 kicking balls per game exist because kickers once doctored broken-in balls – the league now controls K-balls separately.
College counts differently
There’s no single college supply: each team provides and uses its own balls on offense, which is why quarterbacks care which brand their school plays with.

The Per-Game Number: 112

Wilson supplies 112 footballs for each NFL game – 88 for general gameplay and 24 dedicated to kicking situations. The kicking balls are handled separately by rule, a legacy of the era when kickers doctored and softened game balls; the league took custody of “K-balls” to stop it.

The Season Number: 24,960 and Up

NFL Football Operations puts the league-wide supply at a minimum of 24,960 official game balls per season for games and practices – 780 per team. That allocation covers everything from training camp (where the 53-man rosters battles are fought) through the playoffs, and it’s why equipment staffs have their full season’s stock before September.

The Supply Chain: One Town, One Tannery

Every ball is handmade in Ada, Ohio – a town of about 6,000 – by a workforce of roughly 120-140 craftspeople, from Horween Leather Co. steer hides largely sourced from Midwestern ranches. The NFL requires its game balls to be American-made, and Wilson’s exclusive deal runs through 2030 – meaning every snap in the league for the rest of the decade starts in the same small Ohio town. (The players throwing them are covered in our guide to NFL minimum salaries.)

Quick Answers

How many footballs are used in one NFL game?

112 are supplied per game – 88 for regular play, 24 for kicking.

How many footballs does an NFL team get per season?

780, covering games and practices – at least 24,960 across the league.

Are NFL footballs really pigskin?

No – cowhide, from heavy steer hides tanned by Horween in Chicago. The nickname is a fossil.

The Bottom Line

The count: 112 footballs supplied per game, 780 per team per year, at least 24,960 league-wide per season – all of them handmade in Ada, Ohio from Chicago-tanned steer hides, roughly 10-12 balls per hide, by the NFL’s exclusive ballmaker since 1941. The sport’s most-touched object is also its most concentrated supply chain: one factory, one tannery, every snap.