Athletic Gear Giant Proposes to Buy ‘Smart’ Basketball

Sports-equipment giant Russell Brands LLC made a bid to purchase the world’s first smart basketball, whose sensors transmit ball-handling data to smartphones.

The Kentucky manufacturer, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Co., made a $1.5 million offer for the bankrupt startup behind the 94Fifty Smart Sensor Basketball, according to court papers.

The deal still needs approval from a bankruptcy judge.

The basketball’s maker, InfoMotion Sports Technologies Inc., filed for bankruptcy on March 1 while running low on money. In documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston, Chief Executive Michael Crowley blamed the company’s financial problems on an investor group that promised in 2013 to extend $5 million in loans but failed to help the company secured additional loans.

The company’s basketballs, which have motion-sensing chips inside, can record dribble intensity, analyze shot backspin and measure shooting arc, then send that data via Bluetooth technology to a nearby smartphone. The company’s website price the balls at $199.95 each.

“The immediate and precise feedback allows players to improve their muscle memory skills more efficiently,” Mr. Crowley, who founded the company in 2008, said in earlier court documents.

Customers can also link up with other basketball owners around the world; Mr. Crowley told several news organizations that users could play a game of H.O.R.S.E. with somebody in China.

The invention won recognition from Time magazine, which named it one of the “Top 25 Inventions of the Year” in 2014.

Aside from the roughly $1.4 million owed to the investor group, InfoMotion Sports Technologies also owes about $393,000 to an Ohio development agency that extended a loan in 2010. The company was originally based in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb but has stopped operating there, opting to use contracted labor instead, according to court papers.

Write to Katy Stech at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @KatyStech