How many travel ball players?

[BradyC87]

If you look at JOsoftball.com, all teams playing in any of the Minnesota Softball (USA Softball) leagues were required to register their rosters through JO. 1,014 teams registered in 2019 for 8U through 18U. Figure 12 players per team as an average and you have 12,168 girls that played for town associations. This doesn't include any teams registered for rec leagues.

 

[marriard]

Thank you marriard, and others for your interest in this!
How many travel ball players!!
TOTALLY AGREE THERE ARE MORE TRAVEL BALL PLAYERS THAN HIGH SCHOOL PLAYERS.

THIS IS A FIRST PASS; SO ERRORS WILL BE MAJOR. BE KIND.

Ok... well there are some assumptions we can work off and I can show some justification of those numbers. People can argue or come up with different numbers. If ASA/USSSA/PGF/etc actually would publish their roster numbers or lists to work off this would be easier - still not accurate, but more accurate than these back of napkin type calculations.

Here are some data points and assumptions we can all argue over:

• # of HS players under NFHS: 362,048.
  • This number doesn't include all HS players BTW. States like NY don't play under NHFS. Florida has a small Christian Schools division that doesn't play under NFHS. I am sure there are many others out there.
  • In Florida, There are 193 FHSSA varsity teams and 107 JV teams under NHFS. So 300 teams at about 15 players a team
• USSSA has the only online data source worth anything, so I pulled all USSSA teams from Florida ONLY for the 2019 season.
  • I used Florida because I am very familiar with the travel scene here so I can make some assumptions based on my personal experience
  • There were 944 total registered travel USSSA teams from 8UB - 18UA
    • This number does not include teams that only play NSA, PGF, TCS/Showcase schedule, Fast Pitch Orlando and other random travel in the state. but the majority of teams probably play at least 1 USSSA event. The total # of travel teams is probably well over 1,200.
  • I considered 18A-14A as HS age teams (364) and 8U-14B as non-HS (580). 14U is always a mix but this seemed a reasonable way to do this based on the number of teams coming up from 12U
  • Observation says the average roster is right around 11 or 12.
• I took 4 HS teams I know well at varying levels of success in my county and went through their 2019 season to have a look at the rosters of the teams they played.
  • Some teams had travel players through their bench and into JV (in fact schools with JV teams generally had a lot of travel players in JV). Some had zero travel players.
  • On average, it was close enough to 60% travel players to be 60%. I looked at a few other mid-level teams and their rosters were pretty much that - 60% travel
  • So here goes the biggest assumption: this % holds and averages out for the country. I checked a few teams I know in other Florida counties and it seems to be solid enough for Florida.

So... and this is a shameful use of assumptions;

If 60% of NFHS HS players are travel players; 217,228
If the ratio of HS travel teams to non-HS travel teams is consistent (580/364=1.59); that gives 346,133 younger travel players
So somewhere near 563,362 travel players

Obvious problems:
If there are 364 Florida HS age travel teams @ 12 players a team; that gives 4368 HS age travel players; @11 per team that would be 4004 HS age players
However, if there are 300 Florida NFHS HS teams @ 15 players a team; that gives 4500 HS players in Florida but at 60%, only 2,700 of those are travel players. So that would suggest that 1,400-1,700 eligible players are not playing HS softball and my observation suggests this is not the case. It is probably more like 700.

I can see a number of players at non-NFHS schools plus some underage kids playing in 16U and 18U and duplicate teams but even then there is a clear gap I am not comfortable with.

Despite my assumptions and probably some obvious error I am overlooking, that there were close to 600,000 players who played travel softball in a given year does feel like a very reasonable number.

 

[FP26]

During my daughter's high school career I had several conversations with the AD about this very subject. While she was playing, it was very easy to see that her team didn't have the same level of experience as most of the teams she was playing against. As a TB coach, I was familiar with a lot of the players. DD's team had exactly one travel ball player (her). From the teams on her schedule, the closest in comparison had 3 travel ball players. Most teams she played against had between 6 and 8 travel ball players. The top teams on her schedule had 10+ travel ball players. In many cases there was also a correlation between school size and number of travel ball players. In PA, there are 6 classifications; 1A through 6A. DD's school was classified as 2A. Most of these schools had between 3 and 5 travel ball players. Unfortunately for DD, the majority of her schedule was spent playing against 3A, 4A, and one 5A school. Since these schools were much larger in size, they tended to have far more travel players as well.

 

[uncdrew]

We play in 10U B level. Doesn't even get counted by most people since it's not PGF, not USSSA, etc. It's just local, travel softball. And there are hundreds of teams in 10U in our state. Seems like so many girls are playing travel.

 

[MNDad]

Cant look at qualifiers...because yes that would be redundant teams trying again and again.

I meant the travel teams that go to a Regional “nationals” as opposed to a bigger national.

If you look at JOsoftball.com, all teams playing in any of the Minnesota Softball (USA Softball) leagues were required to register their rosters through JO. 1,014 teams registered in 2019 for 8U through 18U. Figure 12 players per team as an average and you have 12,168 girls that played for town associations. This doesn't include any teams registered for rec leagues.

I was looking at that same thing. https://fastpitch.mnsoftball.com/2019states

There’s easily 100 teams at each age level In MN that played USA State last year. It’s debatable if many of these are actual travel teams though.

A rough guess I’d say there’s 50 club travel teams of various skill levels at each age level in MN. Several club orgs have both have both rec and travel level teams. It’s tough to distinguish what to call those.

 

[Jdaddy]

TN easily has over 100 TB teams, maybe closer to 200 considering all age groups and levels. I am really surprised so many HS teams have so few travel players. Even the teams that are .500 or better will have several TB players from B teams. Successful teams are 100% travel ball players with multiple A players.

USFA World Series in PCB, a two week event with A,B and C classes in all age groups, will bring in at least 400 teams every summer. It is a big end of year destination for a lot of B and C teams who don’t play nationals.

 

[BradyC87]

TN easily has over 100 TB teams, maybe closer to 200 considering all age groups and levels. I am really surprised so many HS teams have so few travel players. Even the teams that are .500 or better will have several TB players from B teams. Successful teams are 100% travel ball players with multiple A players.

USFA World Series in PCB, a two week event with A,B and C classes in all age groups, will bring in at least 400 teams every summer. It is a big end of year destination for a lot of B and C teams who don’t play nationals.

I am wondering if it has to do with the region and when their School Ball softball season is? Maybe overlaps with too many other sports? We play in the spring and live in a small town so really the only sports that compete with softball are track and maybe golf. I know for our current varsity team there are a lot of girls that play school ball but don't play TB. This is changing slowly as our travel association grows and hopefully continues that way.

 

[radness]

I am wondering if it has to do with the region and when their School Ball softball season is? Maybe overlaps with too many other sports? We play in the spring and live in a small town so really the only sports that compete with softball are track and maybe golf. I know for our current varsity team there are a lot of girls that play school ball but don't play TB. This is changing slowly as our travel association grows and hopefully continues that way.

Well looking at the responses different regions seem to have different stuff going on.

Would like to read more responses
on # guestimates
of teams in different states.
Anyone Anyone
"Bueller? Bueller?"

Add___________#'s

 

[Traps71]

A quick scan of registered USSSA teams in VA (10U-18U, all levels) shows 187 teams or about 2250 players (assuming average of 12 players per roster). VA (some 8 million people) is much smaller than CA or FL, and the population is concentrated in Northern VA, Richmond, and VA Beach and its surrounding areas. 187 teams is probably a significant undercount because USSSA does not really have a presence in the southern and southwestern parts of VA (orgs like Softball Nation rule there). My guess is that you would probably add half-again as many teams to account for those areas. So probably somewhere around 275 travel teams at all levels in VA or about 3300 girls. Just a SWAG. Even as I write that, it feels like the number is actually higher, just from what I observe by going to tournaments around the state.

 

[Towny9]

We play in 10U B level. Doesn't even get counted by most people since it's not PGF, not USSSA, etc. It's just local, travel softball. And there are hundreds of teams in 10U in our state. Seems like so many girls are playing travel.

@uncdrew you pretty much described my situation in southeast Virginia.