this sport is going to be much bigger than it is now.
I absolutely love baseball and fastpitch. I've actually put some thought into this over the last couple weeks(both due to many posts on FB and going through a grueling month long training class).Maybe you can help me with this because I'm not exactly sure(and to lazy to look it up).
How long has professional baseball been around?
How long has professional fastpitch been around? I'm not talking about this distant past, but in it's current incarnation. What I mean by that is, I think we will agree that Title IX changed women's sports and is slowly trickling up.
I'm not much of a baseball historian, and definitely not fastpitch, but when professional baseball started, those guys didn't make the kind of money they do now. I believe many of them had to also hold down jobs. This still continues today in the independent leagues.
My point is that professional baseball has a really long head start on professional softball(as it now exists). As do all male sports. I think that we look at MLB and wonder why the NPF is growing at a much faster rate. We seem to neglect the fact that MLB has been growing their sport and leagues for well over a century.
So we must stay the course, and like we tell our dds so often, work our tails off to grow this sport. Think about where our sport will be at in 50 years if we keep up the hard work.
I think we can all agree that at the travel ball and college level the game is growing by leaps and bounds. And every year more and more families are being turned on to this sport(I know I didn't pay attention to this sport 5 years ago). And as we all know that as the fan base grows so to will the $s.
Or maybe I just have too much time in class to think.
True story. I'm sitting in a coal mine training class last week and somehow got onto the subject of coaching a 12u fastpitch team. During the conversation 2 guys in their early 20s leaned over and asked if I coached fastpitch. Both of them said it was the ONLY sport they watched. Now we all know why they are probably watching, but the thing is, they are watching. The fan base is growing, we just can't give up.
I honestly believe that by the time my dd graduates from UGA(a dad can hope right
