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High tech basketballs 11 April 2005 Rocket scientists are everywhere. In last week’s update, I mentioned rocket scientists working on the fluid dynamics of toilet systems. This week brings us rocket scientists working on the aerodynamic properties of basketballs. They are doing so for Spalding, which has created a major technical innovation in sports equipment – a built-in inflation pump for a basketball.
The subsequent renaissance of Spalding’s sports equipment division shows both the power and the risk of such technical innovation.
Here’s the story:
Spalding sells more basketballs than anyone else in the business. Trouble is, selling basketballs has not been a very attractive business for quite a while – until 2001, there hadn’t been that much of a difference between a Spalding, a Wilson, or a Rawlings basketball.
In 2001, Spalding introduced the infusion pump system. This was a significant technical innovation that eliminated the need for a pump and an inflating needle.
Inflating basketballs
When you buy a Spalding infusion pump basketball you can take it out of its box and inflate it to the proper pressure without any additional tools.
“This is just a great product for the father and son who come into the store and want to start playing immediately.”
Chris Burston, a buyer of team sports equipment for San Francisco’s Sports Basement superstores, in Technology Review
The infusion project was an unusual one for Spalding to undertake. It was expensive – it took the company two years and cost about a million dollars to do. Spalding’s previous efforts in this area focused around cosmetics -- changing the pebble pattern on a basketball’s surface, for example. These projects generally cost about 1/20th that of the infusion project, and took several months.
According to a recent article in MIT’s Technology Review, the infusion project was approved for two reasons:
1. Spalding’s marketing team of Dan Touhey and Eddie Binder were new and brought experience and perspectives from other industries; 2. The team was able to demonstrate the concept by putting together a physical prototype early in the effort.
The return from Spalding’s investment has been very high. In the year after the infusion pump’s introduction, Spalding saw its market share double, from 32 percent in February 2001, right before the launch of the product, to 64 percent a year later.
That kind of success generates additional investment, which builds innovation capabilities. Spalding is now applying its functional innovation approach to other sports, like softball and football, hoping for similar success.
Spalding didn’t need to create its own development capabilities to develop its infusion system. Instead, it rented these capabilities from technical experts. Spalding used outside design firms to mock up a prototype; the basketballs themselves were manufactured in China. The development team found their rocket scientist working in Spalding’s golf equipment division.
Spalding’s manager of basketball products, Dan Tuohey, provided the concept and the human and financial resources to move the infusion concept through prototyping to production.
Different people take away different lessons from the Spalding story. Here are three I thought were important:
1. Many companies no longer need to build up in-house technical capabilities – instead, they can rent them. But the company still needs to be the author of the idea, providing resources to turn the concept into reality.
2. Customers are rarely able to verbalize their real needs and problems.
"When a moderator in a focus group asked about problems people had with basketballs, the number one answer was probably grip. But once the conversation was steered toward inflation, every hand would shoot up. Everyone had a story."
Dan Tuohey of Spalding, in Technology Review, April 2005
Someone had to steer the conversation to uncover those hard-to-identify customer needs. Even with this kind of insight, consumers still needed to be reassured that the new pump system did not affect the way in which the ball played, which remained of paramount importance (hence the rocket scientist).
3. Technical innovation is very different from fashion-driven innovation. Fashion-driven innovation results in basketballs with different colors and different pebble patterns. Both resource investments and technical requirements are light, but so are the returns. Technical innovation applies new technology to change a piece of the product system. Resource investments and technical requirements are heavy and the risks are higher, but the returns can generate a new base for the business.
Just ask Dan Touhey at Spalding. He’s no longer the head of marketing for basketballs – now he’s doing it for the whole company.
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