Franklin Sports
The heritage sporting-goods maker; the ball is its center of gravity in pickleball.
United States · Founded 1946
- HQ
- 17 Campanelli Parkway, Stoughton, Massachusetts 02072
- Country
- United States
- Founded
- 1946, in Brockton, Massachusetts
- Leadership
- Brothers Irving H. and Sydney Franklin; now Adam Franklin (President & CEO)
- Scale
- Roughly $200M+ revenue across all sports
The story
Franklin is the oldest company on this list by four decades and the only one that came to pickleball from a mass-market sporting-goods base. It is best known as the maker of the official batting glove of Major League Baseball, an innovation it created with Mike Schmidt in 1984.
In pickleball its center of gravity is the ball: the Franklin X-40 is the official ball of USA Pickleball.
Shape decoder
Franklin describes shapes in conventional terms within series rather than branding them. Pull the current shape breakdown from the product pages.
Surface technologies
- Raw carbon fiber faces · Used on the performance models.
Core technologies
- Polymer cores · Across the range.
Series and models
Signature series, FS Tour series (including FS Tour Featherweight), Carbon STK, C45.
Worth knowing
Official Title Sponsor of the US Open Pickleball Championships (announced March 2026). The X-40 is used across the Pickleball Amateur Series and was named official ball of the Indian Pickleball Association. Leadership has publicly framed pickleball as a major opportunity and targets visibility at the 2028 Olympics.