The Telstar ball was the first official ball of Adidas for a World Cup. From that moment Adidas already had the rights to design every model for the following World Cup tournaments.
Technically speaking this ball revolutionized the market because of its new sewing which was launched by Adidas. The ball consisted of pentagon and hexagon panels instead of those long panels of its ancestor. This ball was more spherical than the old ones due to its new sewing.
The Telstar name comes from the words Television and Star, because the boom phenomenom of television started in the 70's. Every day more people watched the TV in all over the world. Due to this mass phenomenom, Adidas called Telstar to its first World Cup ball.
Adidas launched to the market a reedition of the Telstar model during the 90's. This replica is made of synthetic material, but the original Telstar was made of genuine leather. Pictures above an below.