Will a Rounder Ball Yield More World Cup Goals?

By MARK LANDLER - NYT
Published: June 8, 2006

HERZOGENAURACH, Germany, June 1 — When Germany kicks off the World Cup against Costa Rica on June 9 in Munich, the ball being kicked will be rounder than any of its predecessors.

So says Adidas, which designed and engineered the ball, tested it in Britain and Germany, gave it a Teutonic but sporty-sounding name, +Teamgeist, and expects to sell at least 15 million of them this year.

"The ball is rounder because the panels are premolded into the right shape," said Hans-Peter Nürnberg, a senior development engineer who worked on the project at Adidas. "The panels aren't cut out of a flat piece of plastic and then forced into a spherical shape."

Adidas, the world's No. 1 maker of soccer balls, has supplied the World Cup since 1970. The latest ball is the centerpiece of a $100 million-plus marketing effort to drive home the message that Adidas — not Nike, Puma or any other interloper — is the supplier of all things soccer.

"It's not about being the institutional outfitter of the World Cup," said Erich Stamminger, the chief executive of the Adidas brand. "It's about being creative and innovative in how we do it."

Adidas makes the high-tech shoes worn by David Beckham, the uniforms worn by the German and Argentine teams, and the jerseys worn by the referees. It has built a 10,000-seat temporary arena in Berlin, next to the Reichstag, the German Parliament, to showcase its stars and gear.

But in the end, said Arthur Höld, a brand manager at Adidas, the ball is "the heart and soul of the effort."

At its headquarters in this Bavarian town, Adidas displays the balls that will be used in all 64 matches, stamped with the names of the teams and cities. It keeps famous balls from years past under glass...

...Early feedback on the ball suggests that goalkeepers like it less than strikers. "There's a lot of difference. It's very goalkeeper unfriendly," England's goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, said at a recent news conference. "It's more like a water-polo ball or volleyball. It's very light and moves a lot in the air."

But that could help the popularity of the World Cup, since fans tend to like high-scoring matches.

For Adidas, balls are big business. It sold 6.5 million of the 2002 model. With prices ranging from $12.90 for a miniball to $129.99 for an official match ball, the +Teamgeist will do its part to help Adidas achieve its goal of $1.5 billion worth of soccer-related sales this year.

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