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Think of those who have already paid over $3,000 for Apple’s new Vision Pro despite its lack of necessity. They’re going for sports fans, collectors, and tech enthusiasts who enjoy owning a piece of innovation before everyone else. Picioski said the company isn’t looking for customers to buy one and take it for a run at Rucker Park.
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Martin, now a member of the 76ers, seems to fit Wilson’s target audience. “Just based off the experience I had in the dunk contest and it would kind of be like a memorabilia moment.” Martin had the chance to be one of Wilson’s testers for the product, but would he actually spend $2,500 on one? “The response was just so overwhelmingly positive and ‘How do I get one?’” says Kevin Krysiak, senior director of global research and development, team sports at Wilson. Meanwhile Wilson began soliciting the opinions of people throughout the NBA. He tried to get as many hands on the ball as he could. The 6’6″ forward said everyone wanted to try the ball, including dunk contest judges Shaquille O’Neal and Dominique Wilkins. Each Airless Gen1 is identical, with a single layer and no leftover materials, whereas the traditional process requires cutting eight pieces of leather for a four-layer ball.Īfter Martin’s dunk, interest in the ball skyrocketed. The 3D printing allows for the ball to be made more sustainably than the traditional method. It has no air pressure, which can impact the shooting and dribbling of a ball, so it will perform the same in every arena or climate. The ball had the same size, bounce, and weight as a regulation ball, but it was hollow with holes throughout and a different texture (a customized elastic polymer, according to Wilson). “I was kind of confused,” Martin tells FOS. Martin had a less-than-memorable reaction when he first saw it. When Wilson was ready to give its new invention some real run, it called Martin to see whether he wanted to use it in last year’s dunk contest. The company began developing prototypes through additive manufacturing, a type of 3D printing that makes precise geometric shapes by printing in 2D layers before going through rigorous testing. The grievance isn’t unique to the sport as footballs and soccer balls can lose air. The company is always investigating product innovation, whether that’s a price point or a manufacturing process, and started to do so with the basketball to attack one of customers’ most common complaints: Balls eventually go flat. Wilson says it wasn’t necessarily looking to reinvent the basketball. “Target audience is the big question and has been the big question for a while now as we’ve been developing this,” David Picioski, director of global brand partnerships and collaboration at Wilson tells Front Office Sports. What’s the market for an airless basketball? And what is its potential? Is it a niche product? Or something that can one day replace the innumerably dotted orange globe in a college or NBA game? Only a few hundred have been made, and it raises some questions about changes to a product that virtually no one has ever asked. On Friday, an updated version of the ball, called the Airless Gen1 will be available for purchase on Wilson’s website for $2,500.
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Tim Duncan and Steve Nash once starred in a Bridgestone tire commercial in which the company manufactures a ball from its trademark rubber that hardly makes a sound.īut unlike Bridgestone, Wilson actually went through with it and is betting on itself as much as technological innovations by going into the airless ball space. The modern basketball has evolved slightly over the game’s 130-plus-year history, but significant innovations have been more of a joke than a serious pursuit.