The iconic black-and-white soccer ball was designed specifically for visibility on black-and-white televisions.

The 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico marked a turning point in sports broadcasting as it was the first tournament televised live to a global audience. To ensure the ball was visible on low-resolution black-and-white television sets, Adidas developed the Telstar using a truncated icosahedron design. This geometric shape consisted of 32 hand-stitched panels that provided a more spherical surface than previous 18-panel leather balls.The high-contrast color scheme was a direct response to the technical limitations of 1970s broadcasting technology. Since most viewers still owned monochrome televisions, a solid-colored ball often blended into the gray tones of the grass. The alternating black and white panels created a flickering effect when the ball spun, making its trajectory much easier for the human eye to track through a lens.The name Telstar was a tribute to the Telstar 1 communications satellite, which was launched in 1962 and was the first to relay television signals across the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite itself was spherical and covered in dark solar panels and light-colored antennas, bearing a striking resemblance to the new ball. This marketing move successfully linked the sport of soccer with the cutting-edge space-age technology of the era.While the 1970 Telstar was made of leather with a plastic coating, it set the standard for all future soccer ball designs. Even though color television eventually became the norm, the 32-panel black-and-white pattern remained the industry standard for decades. Today, this specific aesthetic is so deeply ingrained in global culture that it remains the default icon for soccer in digital media and animation.