The third activity that occurs in the commodity chain of footballs is transportation. Once they have been manufactured, footballs – as with almost all other goods – need to be transported from the manufacturing sites to the distributing sites for retail sales. Transportation can be done in a variety of ways, depending on where the footballs are going. If they are being transported domestically, the footballs are typically carried by either trains or trucks. If they are being moved internationally, footballs are transported by either boats or planes. See page 8 for a visual example of the transportation step in the commodity chain of footballs. This example shows the process by which footballs used by the NFL are transported from the Wilson factory in Ada, Ohio.
The four transportation modes used for footballs: train, plane, truck, and boat.