How two athletes turned a simple question about tennis balls into a mission to build a more sustainable future for sports.
Every Great Idea Starts with a Question
Eco Sports didn't begin in a boardroom. It began on a tennis court.
In 2020, our founder and Chief Eco Officer (CEO), Troy Akin, was still actively competing in league tennis after a successful collegiate career at Chapman University. While researching the sport he loved, he came across a statistic that stopped him in his tracks: approximately 300,000 tennis balls are used during the US Open alone every year.
What happens to them afterward?
The answer was surprisingly frustrating. Most tennis balls are made from a combination of rubber, synthetic materials, and tightly-woven wool felt (from sheep) that make them extremely difficult to recycle. As a result, the overwhelming majority end up in landfills, where they can persist for decades without breaking down. Not to mention, their heavy reliance on material inputs from animals which contributes to the emissions impact from animal agriculture.
And that was just one tournament.
When Troy considered the millions of tennis balls used annually by recreational and competitive players around the world, he realized the problem was much larger than most athletes recognized.
What began as curiosity quickly became a challenge worth solving.
From Athletes to Founders
Around the same time, Troy met future Eco Sports co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Alex Valenstein. Ironically, one of their earliest conversations—and arguably the beginning of Eco Sports—happened on their very first date.
Troy shared his concerns about tennis ball waste, and the broader environmental & moral / ethical impact of sporting goods. It was during this conversation, that the idea for Eco Sports solidified.
Having played tennis since age 10, competed professionally, and later played at Texas Tech University as part of a Big 12 Championship program, Alex had spent decades immersed in sports. Like Troy, she had never really questioned what happened to sports equipment after it was worn out, broken, or discarded.
The more they talked, the more they realized tennis balls were just one example of a much larger issue. Across nearly every sport, equipment is often made using:
- Virgin plastics
- PVC and petroleum-based materials
- Synthetic rubbers
- Animal-derived materials
- Manufacturing processes with significant environmental impacts (e.g., leather tanning)
Yet most athletes never see what happens behind the scenes.
Sports are built around performance, but historically very little attention has been paid to sustainability, circularity, or end-of-life solutions.
That realization became the foundation for Eco Sports.
The Problem We Could No Longer Ignore
Sports inspire health, community, discipline, adventure, and connection with the outdoors. Ironically, many of the products that support those experiences contribute to environmental challenges that threaten the very places athletes love.
Today, the sporting goods industry generates significant environmental impacts through:
- Resource-intensive manufacturing
- Plastic-heavy product designs
- Global transportation emissions
- Short product life cycles
- Limited recycling infrastructure
- Growing landfill waste
At the same time, climate change is increasingly affecting sports around the world.
Athletes are already experiencing:
- Extreme heat during competition
- Wildfire smoke disrupting outdoor activities
- Shorter winter sports seasons
- Drought conditions impacting fields and facilities
- Severe weather affecting events and tournaments
The connection between sports and sustainability is no longer theoretical.
It's happening now.
Building Solutions Instead of Simply Pointing Out Problems
Initially, Troy set out to tackle the tennis ball problem directly. However, creating a tennis ball that met the durability, bounce, and performance standards athletes expect proved challenging. Rather than compromise on quality, the mission evolved into something bigger.
The goal became helping improve sporting goods across multiple categories. Basketball became an early focus.
As a lifelong basketball player, Troy was already aware that traditional basketballs rely heavily on leather and PVC-based materials. Through extensive research and collaboration with manufacturers, Eco Sports began exploring lower-impact alternatives that could still deliver the performance athletes demand.
Since then, Eco Sports has launched multiple products utilizing better materials while maintaining the quality standards athletes expect.
More recently, our focus has expanded into pickleball—one of the fastest-growing sports in the world and another category facing waste challenges due to disposable plastic equipment.
Today, we're proud to offer a biodegradable pickleball designed to help reduce environmental impact without compromising performance.
While we're still early in our journey, we believe every step toward better materials matters and we are committed to researching innovative plant-based / recyclable materials and either producing the products directly or partnering with other innovative brands in the sporting goods industry to offer a suite of more sustainable choices.
Why Eco Sports Exists
At its core, Eco Sports was founded on a simple belief: athletes deserve better choices. We believe consumers should have access to products that perform at a high level while also considering their environmental or health impact.
We also believe sustainability should be understandable. That's why Eco Sports exists not only as a product company but also as an educational platform and broad marketplace for leading brands.
Our goal is to help athletes:
- Understand sustainable materials
- Make informed purchasing decisions
- Learn about circularity in sports
- Discover innovative products
- Support brands pushing the industry forward
Because informed consumers help drive industry-wide change.
Performance and Sustainability Can Coexist
One of the biggest myths in sporting goods is that sustainability requires sacrificing performance. We reject that idea.
Athletes should never have to choose between quality and responsibility. Advances in material science are making it increasingly possible to create products that are durable, high-performing, lower impact, better sourced, and more responsibly manufactured.
The future of sports isn't about lowering expectations. It's about raising standards.
Creating a More Circular Future for Sports
The traditional sporting goods model follows a simple pattern:
Make → Use → Dispose
We believe there's a better way.
A circular sports economy focuses on:
Make → Use → Repair → Reuse → Recycle
That's why we're actively working to implement initiatives that support:
- Product take-back programs
- Material recovery
- Waste reduction
- Extended product lifecycles
- Greater accessibility to sports participation
Our vision is to help create a future where sports equipment remains in circulation longer and fewer products end up in landfills. And when they do end up in landfills, their life has a limited timeline.
We're not there yet, but we're committed to building toward that future.
More Than a Sporting Goods Company
Eco Sports is about more than products.
It's about community.
It's about education.
It's about optimism.
We believe sports have incredible power to influence culture and behavior.
Imagine the impact if major leagues, manufacturers, brands, and athletes embraced more sustainable materials and circular systems.
Imagine if environmental responsibility became as important as product performance.
Imagine if sports became a leading force for positive environmental change.
That's the future we're working toward. We imagine Eco Sports building and enhancing the sports community one step at a time from the equipment we use, to the programs we support, and to the events we curate.
Why Support Eco Sports
We're not a massive corporation.
We're athletes.
We're consumers.
And we're building the company we wish existed when we first started asking these questions.
Our commitment includes:
- Researching better materials
- Prioritizing product performance
- Supporting sustainability education
- Building community around conscious consumption
- Developing more circular solutions
- Planting a tree with every purchase
We're still growing, learning, and improving.
But we're committed to a "one step forward" mentality.
The Future We Envision
We believe the future of sporting goods looks different than it does today.
A future where:
- Sustainable materials become standard
- Circular design becomes expected
- Waste is dramatically reduced
- Product transparency improves
- Athletes understand the impact of their purchases
- Fans demand better decisions from their favorite athletes, teams, and companies
- Performance and sustainability work together
Most importantly, we envision a future where the sports we love help protect the environments that make them possible.
Join the Movement
Eco Sports was founded because we believed sports could do better.
Not perfectly.
Just better.
Every innovation matters.
Every purchasing decision matters.
Every athlete who asks questions matters.
Together, we can help build a sporting goods industry that performs for athletes while respecting the planet.
And we're just getting started.
Thanks for your interest in our mission!
