I need to find a cake recipe that has a very light and airy texture.   I am making a 12 inch fillled round cake and I am putting a soccer ball cake on top of that. The last time I did this, I decorated the soccer ball with fondant and I used a WASC cake recipe for the soccer ball.   I think because the cake was so dense and moist, it  caused the ball to collapse under the weight of it. So, the ball appeared to be only a half ball when it was a full ball.  I am attaching a picture of the cake to show you. Any suggestions on how to prevent this from happening this time would be greatly appreciated! 

I can't remember ever making a large full ball cake in over 30 yrs of decorating :(  Mostly I did a top 1/2  or mini cupcake balls

My thoughts:   Did you put the upper 1/2 of the ball on a cake board w/dowels/straws in the bottom ?  That would help.  Another option would be to make the bottom 1/2 out of rice ceral treats instead of cake.   Either way you should put a small cake circle under the ball w/supports in a triangle fashion to support the whole thing.  I also think you might not have baked the cake long enough - maybe slightly more time would have kept the ball from sinking.  I really don't think the recipe is the problem.  I'm sure there  are many who have make the lg ball cake w/o problems.

Yolanda Gampp does a lot of sphere shaped cakes on her youtube channel (HowToCakeIt) using her "Ultimate Chocolate Cake" and "Ultimate Vanilla Cake" recipes. I've tried them before, along with the simple syrup, and they were pretty good.

wasc  cake is perfect for a ball cake — you need something like a pound cake or a nice sturdy cake — light and airy cake may or may not hold up under  the fondant —

if it was me I would allow for a little loss in height and I would cover a frozen or at least a nice solidly cold cake