10" Gopher Ball on sale

[sanddrag]

While the long-term durability proved to be much better than I originally expected for these game pieces, seeing this now makes me wonder why they couldn't sell us the grey ones for $12, especially considering the volume that FIRST did for them, and the past history (2012 game pieces).

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

While the long-term durability proved to be much better than I originally expected for these game pieces, seeing this now makes me wonder why they couldn't sell us the grey ones for $12, especially considering the volume that FIRST did for them, and the past history (2012 game pieces).

It's quite possible they are selling them at a loss to clear inventory. I imagine June is possibly their slowest month of the year for sales as summer programs that would use them have started and schools aren't stocking up for next year yet.

[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

While the long-term durability proved to be much better than I originally expected for these game pieces, seeing this now makes me wonder why they couldn't sell us the grey ones for $12, especially considering the volume that FIRST did for them, and the past history (2012 game pieces).

I can think of several reasons why official game balls were not $12.

They had a limited market in terms of both audience and time frame. They can't accurately predict demand over time (from teams, off season events) and have to deal with either excess inventory or ramped up production rates (overtime, temp employees) depending upon how they project sales. They don't know how long a ball will last before being discarded due to average game play roughness and prototyping roughness.

Their supplier of raw materials will also be impacted in similar ways, and will likely raise the price due to a sudden high demand.

FIRST may have requested a higher level of quality control regarding tolerances for size, weight, compressability, skin friction, etc. than their normal tolerances (or lack of them).

Because they can't make colored balls when they are making FRC balls (in the same machinery) they have to raise the price of all of them-- so that's also why the gopher balls were higher priced during the season.

I'm guessing they over produced, expecting more orders for the color balls than they got, and now are trying to clear out the warehouse.

We purchased six and were very fortunate that we got random colors of three orange and three yellow, which directly matches our team's foam flame hat colors: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-3kzPhUUAAbmvK.jpg