How it's done: The making of an NFL football

Since 1941, every point scored in the National Football League has involved a Wilson Football. The company's contract with the NFL is one of its longest, most visible and most lucrative.

—By CNBC's Jessica Golden. Posted: 29 January 2015

Disclosure: CNBC's sister company NBC Sports broadcasts the Super Bowl.

Wilson's footballs are made from cowhides that come from farms in Kansas, Nebraska and Ohio. Wilson's leather vendor, Horween Leather Co., has been providing Wilson's game ball leather for more than 40 years.

After the panels are cut, they go to the stamping station. There, each ball is stamped with the NFL and Wilson logos. Pressure and 500 degrees of heat are brought to bear on the ball, and then black and gold ink is released.

Every leather panel gets a vinyl and cotton lining sewn in. The lining helps the ball to hold its shape after it's punted or kicked. The plant's workers don't use high-tech technology; they use sewing machines from the mid-1900s, and they stitch the footballs' lacings completely by hand.

The most important thing when it comes to lacing is to make sure it's tight. Laces are made of rubber or polyurethane. Most Wilson lacers tie 150 to 200 balls per day.

The last step in the production process, after the ball has its bladder inserted and has been stitched closed, is inflation. It takes approximately one minute to inflate 13 pounds of air into the ball. "Our job here as far as manufacturing footballs is to know that when a ball leaves here it has 13 pounds of air pressure in it. After it leaves the building, it's out of our control," said Dan Riegle, Wilson plant manager.

Every ball at the Wilson football factory is weighed and measured. Each ball must weigh 14 to 15 ounces and measure 28 inches long and 21 inches around the belly.

After inspection, the balls are packaged and shipped. The worker shown here has been working at Wilson for more than two decades and can package a ball in less than eight seconds. She packages approximately 1,000 footballs per day.

Wilson Football makes more than 700,000 footballs a year. For the Super Bowl, the company will provide each team with 54 balls. Wilson will make 10,000 commemorative balls for fans.

From leather to laces, Wilson's football is 100 percent made in America. Located 70 miles from Toledo, Ohio, in Ada, the factory was opened in the 1930s, by the Ohio-Kentucky Manufacturing Company. The firm produced footballs, baseball gloves and boxing gloves. In 1955, Wilson purchased the company and decided to focus solely on footballs.