A Hypnotic Look at How Tennis Balls Are Made

Over the years, we’ve shown you var­i­ous house­hold objects being made–everything from crayons and ink, to vinyl records, old fash­ioned books and paper. Today, you can get a mes­mer­iz­ing glimpse into how ten­nis balls are made. Cre­at­ed by Bene­dict Red­grove for ESPN, the short film above shows “the man­u­fac­tur­ing process of [Wil­son] ten­nis balls for the US Open.” Com­bined, it takes 24 dif­fer­ent process­es to make the final ball. And it’s fun to watch.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Japan­ese Things Are Made in 309 Videos: Bam­boo Tea Whisks, Hina Dolls, Steel Balls & More

How Ink is Made: A Volup­tuous Process Revealed in a Mouth-Water­ing Video

Learn How Crayons Are Made, Cour­tesy of 1980s Videos by Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers

20 Mes­mer­iz­ing Videos of Japan­ese Arti­sans Cre­at­ing Tra­di­tion­al Hand­i­crafts

The Art of Mak­ing Old-Fash­ioned, Hand-Print­ed Books

The Mak­ing of Japan­ese Hand­made Paper: A Short Film Doc­u­ments an 800-Year-Old Tra­di­tion