NCAA Ejects Leather Basketballs From Tournaments

April 2002

In late 2001, PETA contacted the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to request that it switch from leather basketballs in its annual “March Madness” men’s and women’s tournaments to cruelty-free synthetics. The NCAA requested more information, and PETA sent a report detailing how the leather industry tortures and kills millions of cows and calves, destroys the environment, and endangers human health through the use of toxic chemicals.

In the spring of 2002, the NCAA wrote PETA to inform us that it had decided to require the use of synthetic basketballs in both the men’s and women’s tournaments, beginning in 2003.

Read more about the leather industry.