Frustration from a professional softball player

[CoachHarley]

I think it all comes down to advertising and when games are televised. You can catch a few games here and there, but they are recorded and shown at stupid times. If they were on at better times and advertised more, I believe there would be more of a following. There are tons of people that watch the College WS.

Maybe the MLB teams could start teams, either at their fields or the AA-AAA fields. Use local talent and play the closer teams. Stadiums are already there, minus having to change the base paths and pitching distance. Of course, it would all have to be advertised A LOT more. Majority of people don't even know there is a pro softball league. Everyone knows about the NFL,MLB,NBA,NHL and even the WNBA.

 

[BobInMadison]

That is the catch-22 isn't it... how do you dream of becoming a pro-athlete is there isn't a place to be one. They dream of playing in college because that is the where the dream ends for most.

It isn't the same overseas for a lot of womans sports. There is a place to play beyond 22 years of age, and if you want to play until your knees give out, you can.

Pity, isn't it, that the adult sports leagues of all kinds are dying out. Wisconsin used to be a hotbed of Men's Fastpitch, for example. Still some teams, but they are dying out, mostly for lack of pitching. Some of the best leagues are the 55+ leagues, since that is where the stars of yesteryear play.

As far as overseas goes -- a few years back, I had a job offer in Germany. The local softball team was run by the pitching coach for the German Jr. National Team. The youngest team was a 16U team, but they had more adult teams than youth teams. The coach told me they often got ladies who had recently graduated from American D-1 schools to play for their competitive Bundesliga teams. Many of the American expat girls were on the youth softball and baseball teams. (Girls played baseball up through 12U, then went on to 16U softball. They had 16U, 19U and adult softball teams).

 

[Lickety Split]

All in my opinion:
Sport popularity and success is highly dependent on two things.

1. The number of kids that played the particular sport when they were young.
2. Whether or not you can gamble on the games.

The most popular sports are the sports most every kid played when they were young. This is because they can relate to the game, they understand the rules, they remember going to the games when they were young, and they always dreamed about playing in the big leagues. Those sports are the big 4 (Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey). There are a lot of sports like softball that only get a few fans because there is a very low percentage that can relate to the game and that have memories of the game. If more girls demand to play professionally perhaps more teams will surface and a trend will begin. But for that to happen you need ratings and money flowing in.

Gambling helps with ratings. If betting on professional softball games becomes a popular thing people will start to watch, people will google results, more games will be televised and more sponsors will come on-board. All of this will bring money in. Ratings, internet hits and sponsorship's equals money.

In my opinion, this is what professional softball and the many other struggling sports are missing.

 

[Ken Krause]

One thing to keep in mind that hasn't been brought up yet is how long it took for the big four men's pro sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey) to build the kind of audience that supports what players are paid today. It really wasn't until the 1970s, I think, that those pro athletes didn't have to have regular jobs in the off-season. They toiled for decades before hitting it big with the TV money that is really their foundation today. Teams and players came and went, or moved around the country.

The Bandits stadium, which is a very nice, softball-specific facility, is less than an hour's drive my house. I could pretty much go see a game any time they're in town. But I haven't been to one in a couple of years, mostly because I can't find anyone to go with me. My wife has no interest in watching people she doesn't know play, and my two daughters who played have no interest in watching a game either. I might be able to get a couple of guys I coached with to go, but then you have to coordinate schedules. One of them still has a son playing baseball so he's not usually available on the weekends, and I tend not to go to any sporting events during the week.

I think one of the other Catch-22s that hurts is you don't have a consistent lineup of players year to year because of the low pay. In the old days of men's pro sports, when they were indentured servants, you could build an affinity with the players. With NPF, most players are there and gone within a year or two so you never build that affinity for the team. The team is a name, but what most people want to see is the people.

I also agree with the idea that women overall don't seem to be as interested in watching sports as men overall. Yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but in my circle at least the intensity with which sports are watched is different. I don't recall any of my female friends or acquaintances being as frustrated after watching the Chicago Bears lose a game they should have won as my male friends and I get. (Luckily the Bears' poor showing the last few years has helped me to not take their games so seriously.)

Then, of course, there's my continuing mantra that most of the NPF games are played at the same time their primary target audience is spending their weekend at a tournament. You could say baseball does that too, but it already has a lot of fans who have no connection to the sport. I'm guessing the interest of most softball dads in watching a game drops considerably after their daughters are no longer playing. And they would be the most likely to continue watching.

I would love to see NPF succeed and expand to give more women the opportunity to continue using the skills they worked so hard to acquire. It's fun to watch and the athleticism is truly amazing - especially if you know how to compare it. But to make it happen takes time. Probably a generation minimum. Hope they can hold out that long.

 

[spleen1015]

Ken, I think the thing that changed MLB was free agency. That's really when the salaries blew up. So, then you see a situation where players are getting more of the revenue. Owners don't like that so they increase prices. Players see the owners getting more revenue. Rinse, repeat.

Did you guys know that each NFL team made $240 million last season just from tv revenue? That's more than twice their salary cap I think. $240 million and these guys want the fans to build them stadiums. The Chargers are moving because they want a new stadium and San Diego won't build it. They have to pay the NFL $500 million to move. Why not use that $500 million to build yourself a fancy dancy new stadium?

So, that was off topic. Bottom line is, if people want to come watch NPF, then the players will get paid more money. Until then, sorry.

 

[chinamigarden]

There's one problem I see with women's sports that men's sports does't have.

How many girls what to be professional athletes when they grow up? I know tons of girls that are going to play softball in college and to them that's where the dream ends. They just want to play in college.

Isn't it the dream of pretty much every little boy to play pro baseball or basketball or football?

There are enough players it to fill every available pro roster spot in their sports. Have you heard of a WNBA team that failed because they couldn't find enough players?

Lets be honest, girls aren't allowed the same dreams boys have. When people ask girls what they want to do when they grow up the child is corrected and sent into the right pigeonhole.

Oh dear you want to be a doctor, that sounds tough maybe you can be a nurse.
An engineer, oh my that sounds hard with all that math...
A plumber, no girl wants to do that you have to work with peoples toilets...have you thought about college
A mechanic, dear thats too dirty thats a boys job, you should be a teacher
An athlete, oh honey thats not possible for a girl...

My dd won a small scholarship from a local club and they invited all the kids who won one to show up at a club members meeting and they were all introduced. Of the 6 girls that were there 4 were in education programs to become teachers (polite applause and nodding), one was un decided (applause) and when my dd said she was working on a bachelors in Electrical Engineering with the goal of getting a masters in biomedical engineering (gasps and silence and then delayed polite clapping). They were shocked to hear that.

Girls have dreams, sometimes they know better then to speak of them.

 

[ScottyDont]

As an aside, Emily Allard is an outstanding instructor for slapping, fielding, and running. She did a clinic for our organization and was well-liked by the girls. Taught the coaches quite a bit, too. So...if you have the opportunity, supplement her income a bit!

 

[Ken Krause]

Spleen, agree that the Curt Flood decision is what shook the coffers loose in MLB. Still, the money had to come from somewhere. Once the networks got interested the big money started showing up in all those sports. Free agency made sure the players got a bigger share of it.

 

[BobInMadison]

Ken does have a point, that it took decades to build up an audience for the major men's sports.

Also, the audiences can be rather fickle. Soccer was very popular for a few years in the 1970s, for example. People came out to see Pele play, just as football fans in the Midwest came out to the early NFL games to watch Jim Thorpe play. The difference was, there was more of a natural fan base for the American variety of football.

One thing about sports, they are a form of entertainment, and there are many more forms of entertainment these days than there were in days of yore. My grandmother spent some of her college summers as a newspaper reporter in Oklahoma the 1920s. (Her brother had been an Army reporter in WW I, and started a paper when he came home). She was the society columnist, which meant her days were free, so she went over to watch the local minor league team. (Now they only have AAA, AA and A, in those days they had B, C and D as well.) This was a C or D team, and since none of the other reporters watched the games, she became the baseball reporter for that paper.

These days, someone with summer afternoons to kill would more likely stay at home and watch a MLB game on TV, so the B, C and D teams have all gone away.

 

[Lickety Split]

Networks aren't going to get interested unless there are ratings. To achieve that you need to test the waters. Couple examples are the Little League World Series and the the outdoor NHL hockey games. ABC used to carry just the final LL game. Then they and ESPN started carrying more games, a little each year to see what the response is. From what I can see they hit on something. Ratings seem great for the LL World Series. Good ratings mean more money and everyone wins, so they keep pushing for more.

The NHL initially tested the waters with the outdoor hockey games with games between the original 8. The response must have been very positive because there are more and more outdoor games each year. Good Ratings means more money and everyone wins.

Professional softball needs to find a time slot that has real low ratings and experiment with some prime time games on a big network in that time slot. Also, their Championship is at the end of August when everyone is gearing up for school and football which is not ideal for ratings. I would move the championship back a week or two, you might get more views and attendees.

Krause hit on something too. MLB was not always as profitable as it is today. Years and years ago you had to go to games to see them and players were not making the money they make now. Also, players had other jobs too. And like others said, big money wasn't around MLB until money started changing hands and players and owners started making demands from each other and sponsors, and the sponsors and TV networks didn't mind because of the ratings and fans kept paying the ticket prices.