OpenAI is selling a $70 ChatGPT basketball (currently out of stock), along with merchandise such as T-shirts and caps

OpenAI launched its first hardware this week: the Codex Micro keyboard, priced at $230. At the same time, its own accessories store started selling a $70 rubber basketball and a $175 “research” half-zip hoodie.
(Background: FT leaked an exclusive killshot on OpenAI: a major ChatGPT redesign rolling out “able to do anything” AI agents, ending the pure chat-only era)
(Additional context: ChatGPT has begun running ads: how it works, how AI conversation will be affected, and user privacy at a glance)

This week, OpenAI released its first physical hardware since its founding: the $230 Codex Micro keyboard, designed specifically to control a whole lineup of Codex coding agents. Almost at the same time, OpenAI Supply Co. quietly listed a $70 rubber basketball and a $175 half-zip top featuring the word “research” in cursive on the chest in its official merchandise store.

Besides these two new items, the official store also sells hats, socks, T-shirts… and other accessories.

Who would buy this basketball?

On the product page, OpenAI says the basketball comes from its marketing campaign “Pause. Play. Prompt.” It’s a physical reminder that creativity doesn’t only live on screens. There’s no further details about the campaign on the official site, so a reasonable interpretation is that OpenAI wants to remind users to occasionally put down Codex and go outside.

The ball is priced at $70. Even though it’s not cheap, the ChatGPT-branded basketball is already shown as “out of stock” for now. If you convert it to input tokens for GPT-5, it’s about 56 million tokens. The price of a single ball is enough to ask the model thousands of questions—compared to that, it seems a bit absurd.

When a company starts selling belief, it usually means it no longer satisfies itself with only selling products. This kind of brand play won’t change any line item in the financial report in the short term, but in the long run, whether a company can survive the burn phase often isn’t determined by being technically ahead by a few months—it’s whether there’s a group of people willing to follow along.