The Texas Charge folded

[BobInMadison]

There was a time when, in the US, women's tennis was more popular with the fans than men's tennis.
At that time, the US Open was the only one of the four majors to give the same $ prizes to men and women.
Almost seems fair.
If the men outdraw the women, the men make more. If the women outdraw the men, the pay is even.

 

[YOCOACH]

After reading all 8 pages of this thread, there have been many valid and extremely good points made. That said, has everyone forgotten the history of both baseball and softball at the highest levels? Baseball was started by men, predominantly played by men with a short stint during WWII where some especially talented women filled in to keep MLB alive while a majority of the men went overseas to protect our country and our freedom and then the women's side of the sport died out when the men returned home to rejoin the league. This is a gross oversimplification I understand, but please bear with me. Softball was started by men, played at the highest levels by men and then, in 1972 , due to legislation, women were aloud to play it at all levels; but especially at the collegiate levels. Since then, for the most part, the men's side of softball has mostly died out. There were many great men's FP SB teams playing at the highest levels every weekend in ASA/NSA/USSSA tournaments as well as the collegiate and professional levels. Now collegiate men's softball is nonexistent for the most part and there are a handful of American professional SB teams at best. Heck, I doubt that many on here even know who Eddie Feignor was or who the King and His Court were, let alone spent money to go see them. How about Mike White, Folkard or Sofflet? Let's try a little more up to date. Has anyone seen Bill Hillhouse play competitively?

Back then, most of those top notch American men's professional SB teams consisted of some foreign nationals such as Australia and the rest of the team traveled from around the country from where they lived to where the team was located that they signed on to play for the Summer. They were poorly paid and provided a slum house for the summer shared by 4-8 players and a supplemental paying job at the sponsoring towns' local gas station as a gas jockey (attendant) or similar position. Sound familiar? The players were given food and usually transportation to their games via a very old, used, and decrepit former Greyhound bus purchased third-hand from someone. However, some teams had to actually pool gas money to car pool in several personal vehicles to go play. Granted, we're talking the 1970's and 80's but the comparison still stands the test of time by today's standards.

So please explain to me how as the women's side of SB has grown and the men's side has all but vanished this is sexism? What has changed other than the political climate and the "now" or relatively "new" hot button words to throw around? How about this instead. Is it a lack of good marketing? Is it a poor business model? Could it possibly be a combination of it all including what Eric F said? Or could it all come down to a lack of history and tradition? The NPF has only been in existence an extremely short time compared to Men's professional softball. Actually, Women's sports in general are a tiny blip in history compared to those of men's sports over the long term. My question to all of you is are we arguing PC thoughts, reasonable assumptions/opinions or facts that can be proven?

 

[625ender]

Terrible business plan and zero marketing. I only watch a game if I stumble upon it on ESPN23C Espaniol or Fox abc123 channel. There are a ton of professional and collegiate sports to spend money on. Fastpitch isn't even on the radar screens of 99.7% of the population. You MUST create a following. Free games and signing after the games would be a start, but impossible to sustain