Can I get a travel ball history lesson?

marriard said:

'Travel Ball' was an 'olds boy club' at the top, and unless you were in the know, you didn't get to be part of it. That power has shifted - there are now multiple power groups that have moved with the will of the customer (PGF, USSSA for the most part); and some that haven't (ASA in particular).







Standard Compete: ASA was complacent (and remains that way); they had their baby (The USA Olympic Team) and used it. They are now getting run over by PGF, which is basically some of their disgruntled old boys members and some people p***ed off ebough to be willing to put a whole bunch of work in. You will hear the 'it was better in old day' crowd; this, of course, is garbage - it may have been better for them, but not for a wider swath of people. Players don't automatically have to switch to one of the 'old boys network' teams - they have options. USSSA may be on the B/C/Rec side of this equation (though USA Elite is really good); but it is an organized behemoth and they have eaten into rec and ASA and others with their weekend tournaments and opportunities. Even 10 years ago, the goal for the best teams was to qualify for ASA Nationals. That is a joke now - in Florida, teams would rather go play a PGF event than a qualifier.

Recruiting: And college ball is on TV A LOT, so more people are exposed, so want to be part of it. Also there are WAY more college teams than ever - growth in teams over the years has been extremely strong. These teams need players and a lot of them. This is the system that the coaches and NCAA put in and it is terrible and stupid, but that is what we have right now and people have adapted to it. The showcase scene evolved not just in terms of $$$, but also because coaches needed volume of players and you couldn't just show up at ASA Nationals - that wasn't going to cut it. This leads to...

Growth: This is now nationwide - it used to be Cali was 95% of it, and the few that weren't had to go there. Now it is across the nation. You don't have one power center where everything comes out of or everyone has to go to.

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Big Daddy Michigan said:

How did we get to so many governing bodies?

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Westwind said:

I agree with everything in your post except this. And I may only be disagreeing because of small sample size. May be a local fluke.

I believe, according to my own unscientific observation, that more of our small town athletes have gone on to play softball in college than any other sport.

I asked our athletic directors to track how many hs athletes go on to play at least one year of college athletics by sport. One refused and said “wha ‘bout fuhball” and the other flipped me off because his mouth was too full of Cheetos to respond verbally.

Sorry I went all off topic there.

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sluggers said:

That is an easy one. It is all about the $$$.

Up until the 1990s, the money was in men's slowpitch softball. There were several organizations that published ruled books for slowpitch. They organized state and national slowpitch tournaments. The organizations were the ASA, the NSA (Natioanal Softball Association, and the USSSA (United States Slowpitch Softball Association).

The only group with male and female fastpitch was the ASA. The ASA treated fastpitch as the red-headed stepchild.

In the 1990s, the ASA's national tournaments and national qualifiers were awful. There were *NO* pool games. It was strictly double elimination. The national tournaments were usually in California.

The California teams were light years ahead of softball in the US. So, basically, a team from Illinois or Virginia would qualify for the nationals, fly to California on Monday and be eliminated on the first day on Tuesday. And, the non-California were usually run ruled.

People complained. The ASA ignored them.

So, the AFA (American Fastpitch Association) became a competitor. The qualifiers and the national tournament had pool games along with the elimination tournaments. The AFA drew mainly from the southeast and Texas.

The NSA (National Softball Association) saw the growth in girls softball, and got in on the action. They started a tournament catering mainly to the southeast and eastern seaboard.

In 1999, the USSSA changed its name from United States Slowpitch Softball Association to the US "Specialiy Sports" Association and began offering fastpitch qualifiers. (My team won the first USSSA state championship in Illinois. We didn't even know it was a championship tournament. We win the last game, and we're packing up to go home, and the tournament director wanders over with this trophy about the size of a minivan. It weighed more than some of our players.)

The ASA finally woke up and realized it had lost market share, and started offering all kinds of national championships. Gold, A, B, C and then national championship tournaments for regions (I have never been able to figure that one out.)

The USSSA, the NSA and the ASA all had many national tournaments. It was Oprah for national championships: You win a national, and you win a national, and you win a national!

Through all the years, the one constant was baseball. (oh, wait, that line is from Field of Dreams, sorry...)

Through all the years, the one constant was the Orange County Batbusters. The OC Batbusters (Haning) are the New York Yankees of fastpitch softball.

Tired of making money for the ASA, USSSA and the NSA, the OC Batbusters decided to starts its own national championship. It said, "We aren't playing ASA any more. You want to play the best, you got to play in our national championship." And, the PGF (Premier Girls Fastpitch) was started.

Now, the best of the best fastpitch teams play in the PGF tournament. PGF has a TV contract, so it makes some $$$.

It is all about the dollar.

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sluggers said:

Tired of making money for the ASA, USSSA and the NSA, the OC Batbusters decided to starts its own national championship. It said, "We aren't playing ASA any more. You want to play the best, you got to play in our national championship." And, the PGF (Premier Girls Fastpitch) was started.

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whiporee said:

And it's not just about the dollar Slugger is talking about. At some point these organizations realized there was money to be made (not just in softball, but in all youth sports). You get a team of 15 girls with parents willing to pay $2500 a piece, there's a way to make money there. You build in the competitive nature of parenting these days, and throw in private lessons lessons at 60/hr/ a couple of times a week. I think i ran out numbers a while ago that suggested a large organization could net 20 percent per team. Not a lot on its own, but when you have an 10U A and B,, a 12U A and B, a 14U A&B, a 16UA or B and an 18UA, that's potentially 67 grand in one town from just fees. Three or four different regions in a state, and a half dozen states and you're talking decent money.

But on order to make it, you have to convince people that the only reat path to success is through travel ball. The good news is you don't have to do anything -- the girls and the parents will do it for you. By 12 -- 14 at the latest -- girls who play rec are scoffed at, and making a high school team gets tough, not just because of skill but because the high school coach also coaches travel ball and already knows a lot fo the girls.

And then there's the tournaments. On our scale, 700 bucks per team, 10 teams a division, 9 or so divisions, that's 63,000 in revenue per tourney. Say the venue takes half and the walk in gate (200 people at 5 bucks per person per day, so another 2 grand), thats still 30K per weekend. Umps cost money, insurance costs money, but not 30K. And if you get into something like Sparkler -- 700 teams at 2500 each? A million seven. And that's not even counting stay to play kickbacks.

Travel ball grew because of money -- because some organizations realized they could convince parents that the sport had potentially more to offer than a couple games a week on an elementary school field. And to be fair, there's some truth to it. Stricter Title IX enforcement created programs in colleges all over the country and forced the sport out of California, and with more programs, came the possibility of scholarship money. Even without money, though, playing a sport gives a kid a better chance to get into some schools. Paranoid (justifiably) parenting makes parents try to push their kids into anything that might help, and what do you know? Plenty of people out there willing to say that softball might just be the ticket their daughter is looking for, but only if they take it seriously, play for the right program and in the right tournaments. Thus an industry is born.

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whiporee said:

. Even without money, though, playing a sport gives a kid a better chance to get into some schools. Paranoid (justifiably) parenting makes parents try to push their kids into anything that might help, and what do you know? Plenty of people out there willing to say that softball might just be the ticket their daughter is looking for, but only if they take it seriously, play for the right program and in the right tournaments. Thus an industry is born.

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RADcatcher said:

ADD
Everyone who wants to Coach their own team can. Bringing many more teams to the overall beast that it is.

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