Chicago Is In Super Bowl LI; Here’s How

No, you didn't just have a nightmare that the Chicago Bears sucked this year, they did, but Chicago does hold a prominent position at Super Bowl LI thanks to a team up of companies with long standing roots in the city.

Wilson Sporting Goods is based in Chicago, and they are providing the footballs for the Super Bowl. These footballs are made with leather crafted by another old Chicago company, Horween Leather.

According to the Chicago Tribune;

Horween makes leather for Spalding basketballs and Rawlings baseball gloves. But most of its sports business comes from football leather, which Horween started making around 1940 when founder Isidore Horween's sons Arnold and Ralph — football standouts who played for Harvard and the Chicago Cardinals — teamed up with Wilson and Bears founder and owner George Halas to try to make a better ball

Horween ships finished leather to Wilson, who then makes 216  footballs to be used exclusively for the Super Bowl. Each team gets 108 balls, 54 for practice and 54 for the game, and about 120 of them are used in the actual game.

Watch the video, and read more about this cool partnership  here.

And that kids, is how Chicago is in the Super Bowl. Cherish the fact, because it might be the only way Chicago fans get some Big Game love for a very, very long time.