NFL and CFL Exposed! Cows Suffer and Die for Wilson Leather Footballs

When you watch the National Football League (NFL) or Canadian Football League (CFL), you should expect to see a thrilling game free of exploitation—but if you knew how they make NFL and CFL footballs, you’d change the channel and never look back.

PETA undercover investigators filmed inside Ohio slaughterhouse Rodabaugh Bros. Meats, where workers kill, dismember, and skin cows for the leather used to make the official NFL and CFL leather footballs produced by Wilson Sporting Goods.

“I was a loan officer at a bank before we bought this. I used to have a good job with benefits, but now I get to kill things.”
–Rodabaugh Bros. Meats Owner to PETA’s Investigators

The terrified cows are forced to see, hear, and smell their friends being killed and dismembered right in front of them before being killed themselves. A slaughterer blasts them with a captive bolt gun, cuts their throats, bleeds them out, and cuts their heads off. PETA’s undercover investigators filmed a cow trying to escape the kill pen and another who watched for over nine minutes as a worker hung a cow up by her feet, sawed off her legs, and skinned her. 😰 How tf can we enjoy the NFL and CFL knowing that players are tossing dead cows’ skin around?

Cows are sensitive individuals who live in complex social groups and mourn when a loved one dies or when separated from each other. They don’t deserve to suffer for sports—yet workers in the leather industry burn them with hot irons, slice off their tails without pain relief, and turn their skin into footballs.

Prepare to be even more shook: Wilson makes around 700,000 leather footballs annually. One cow’s skin makes about 10 footballs, so at least 70,000 cows are killed annually for Wilson footballs. 😲

This mass slaughter isn’t just cruel—it’s also pointless. Wilson already makes several synthetic footballs that are compassionate to animals and contribute way less to water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than leather made from cows’ skin. The NFL and CFL need to start working with Wilson ASAP to develop a prime-quality synthetic football that’s as good as or better than a cowskin football performance-wise.

Join PETA in urging the NFL and CFL to kick leather out of the stadium and convert to synthetic footballs. 🏈

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