Dow and Wilson Sporting Goods partner to create the TRU 32 pickleball
Midland, MI – Pickleball is often described as a hybrid of tennis, badminton and ping pong, and is celebrated for its enjoyable gameplay, ease of learning and accessibility. Despite being invented in the 1960s, it’s now the fastest-growing sport in the United States — according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), participation has grown by more than 158.6% since 2021. This unprecedented growth was onset by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the racket sport offered a safe yet social exercise, requiring only a court, paddle and ball.
Wilson Sporting Goods was ahead of the craze and began to ideate its first pickleball design in 2018. Around that same time, they had enlisted Dow’s materials science expertise and R&D capabilities to help create a more sustainable tennis ball. The teams worked hand-in-hand to ultimately develop the Triniti tennis ball, integrated with Dow plastomer technologies to help offer a lively bounce, consistent performance and durability without pressurized packaging.
Building on their successful tennis ball collaboration — and shared commitment to advancing performance and sustainability in sporting goods — the teams shifted gears to tackle optimizing the ball for the fastest-growing sport.
By the time the Triniti ball launched, Wilson had also released its first pickleball design: the TRU 32. It was a rough-to-the-touch injection-molded pickleball, comprising of an innovative proprietary formula. With an equally distributed 32-hole pattern, it offered improved flight stability when compared to traditional 40-hole options. Now that Wilson had this initial design nailed down, they were ready to elevate it for professional-grade performance, and knew Dow could help.
The teams embarked on a mission to optimize the TRU 32, exploring the benefits of various Dow materials to develop a design and composition that would offer superior consistency, durability and speed. Leveraging our learnings from the Triniti ball, we collaborated on a multitude of prototypes until we landed on a next-level pickleball.
Integrated with Dow elastomer technologies, the TRU 32 Pro delivers the same dependable consistency as TRU 32 but with enhanced speed and liveliness, making it ideal for advanced competitive gameplay. Its patented hole pattern creates consistent flight and bounce characteristics that complement the fast, responsive nature of its composition. Manufactured in the USA with imported components, the ball is USA Pickleball approved for outdoor competitive play and introduced new levels of pickleball performance. Building on this design, our teams also recently collaborated on a version specifically for indoor play — the TRU 32 Indoor ball.