How players like Brandon Aubrey helped develop UFL’s new ball

The United Football League released its new ball on Thursday afternoon with a familiar provider: Big Game Football Factory.

Big Game, a company based in Dallas, provided footballs for the XFL and USFL in each of the last two years. Big Game founder Chris Calandro has specialized in creating hand-crafted, custom footballs for high school football, college football and professional leagues for 31 years. That list includes 11 national title teams.

Big Game’s relationship with the UFL began with vice president of football operations Daryl Johnston and Calandro already sharing a relationship. Each of them has a vested interest in the game as fans first who care about the game.

“We’re both into the game and the details of the game,” Calandro told FOX Sports, “and with this, through football, we can contribute to that.”

Big Game employs 55 employees to assemble each ball they’re commissioned to create, taking pains to make a football that is not just sturdy and resilient but that players love to throw, carry, catch and kick. Big Game is an American company making its footballs from materials in the U.S.

When folks ask Big Game where they get their leather, their reply is as pithy as it is true: “Cows, born and bred in the USA.”

The factory in Dallas operates like a luxury boutique brand, hence the $149.99 price tag for an official UFL ball, but with that comes not just the quality football but an attention to specifics that football people have come to crave and use for celebrations — like commemorating Oklahoma’s 34-30 win against Texas last season. (The ball sold out.)

While Big Game keeps most of its innovations private, I asked Calandro to give me one example of taking a player’s desire and incorporating it into the football’s Big Game makes today.

“Let’s talk about kickers for a second,” he said. “They’re often disregarded. Quarterbacks get all the love and kickers tend not to get much attention. They have some very specific needs to help them perform. And so we’ve talked to kickers a lot about the shape of the ball and the materials that we build the footballs with.”

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And those conversations have paid dividends for Big Game and kickers like Dallas Cowboys kicker and former USFL Birmingham Stallion kicker Brandon Aubrey.

“I’m glad you brought him up,” Calandro said, “because Brandon is one of the ones that I worked with directly.”

Aubrey is a Dallas metro native. He was a soccer star at Plano High Senior High before playing four years at Notre Dame and two years in Major League Soccer for  Toronto FC. When he was selected by the Stallions, he’d never kicked a football in a game. 

“And he came to the factory. We talked a lot about the materials. I showed him around. We talked in great detail about the ball, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, and how we can help him.”

In 2022, Aubrey made 18 of 22 field goal attempts and 22 of 24 extra-point attempts en route to the USFL championship. In 2023, he followed one successful USFL season with another, hitting 14 of 15 field goal attempts and all 35 extra point tries to help lead the Stallions to back-to-back titles.

Later that summer, he signed with the Dallas Cowboys and set an NFL record for consecutive made field goals without a miss — 19 — with one made from 58 yards out. At the end of his rookie season, Aubrey was named First Team All-Pro and to the 2023 Pro Bowl.

“And he’s a great guy,” Calandro said. “It’s been great working with him. It’s very gratifying. I kept texting him during the season just to say great job this year. It quickly became his dream, kicking in the NFL for his hometown team, and it’s just as gratifying to see that dream come true.”

Supplying footballs for a professional football league is Calandro’s dream. 

“I’ve told Daryl before,” Calandro said, “we (Big Game) are trying out too. We currently do not hold the NFL game on contract. Every contract expires, but we’re trying out too. So we want to help the players perform so that, ultimately, some of that love trickles down to us.”

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young and subscribe to “The RJ Young Show” on YouTube.

 

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