Making the NPF viable

[obbay]

Seeing a game in person is a different experience. IMHO- If you develop the interest through TV, then when there is the opportunity to attend a live game there would be more interested in attending. The beauty of the live games (for now) is the venue is small enough to be on top of every play and then when the game is over to walk on the field, run the bases and meet the players.

 

[MTR]

Don't think you can compare the WNBA/NBA deal with this. Men's & women's basketball are pretty much the same game. Baseball and softball are not. I don't know how many girls are playing b-ball during the WNBA season, but you can bet the softball audience is on the field the majority of the time the NPF games are being played.

Softball no longer has an off-season. Travel ball is bracketed by HS ball. I see the only way a pro league succeeds is if it moves South to play when the majority of girls are not on the field. Then you run into another issue.

Whether you like it or not, the size of the FP softball market is miniscule compared to other sports. And another issue that is paramount to the entire issue is TV. Who is going to pay for the TV coverage? I don't care if you have the most popular event in the world scheduled, if someone isn't willing to pay to sponsor it, no one is going to see it. Money, nothing else, drives TV coverage. And for TV sponsorship to be viable, there must be a target market that can be sold to the people with the $$$. The NCAA Championships, World Cup and Olympic softball get a nice share, but those are limited-time events. Do you think they would garner the same share if each event was stretched out over 8 weeks? I would love to say yes, but I just don't believe that would be realistic.

 

[druer]

Ken - I agree that part of the problem is that those who are hardcore about softball are playing during the prime time of their season and that hurts them. However, I believe that their timing has to do with the fact that they can't/don't pay the players very much money so the players have to make a living the other 9 months of the year and many of them are likely teachers so the summer is their only availability. But I see no reason that they shouldn't be marketing to others outside of the softball world. No reason that girls that play basketball, volleyball or soccer wouldn't come out and watch if they knew about the teams. Just like boys that are football players still show up to watch baseball games. The league shouldn't continue to assume that the only prospective fans are softball players and just give up because they know that those players are playing ball. Give tickets away and fill the seats and just make money on the concessions if you need to in order to build the fan base. They have to start thinking out of the box and advertise to girls/families outside of the sport. It's an exciting sport to watch, and even more exciting when you haven't played and you see the ball pitched so close at 70 MPH.

Advertise - There is very little done to advertise the teams. I talked to Crystl Bustos at a hitting clinic and she told me that she was astounded to go into a grocery store 1 time very near the park and couldn't find a single employee that had even heard of the Akron Racers. Her plan this coming year was to personally visit as many facilities, speak at schools etc as she could to try and get the word out. Nobody can go watch if they don't hear about the teams and really it's going to take a player turned manager to think "Maybe we should go out into the community personally and do something about this if the organization can't afford radio/tv spots."

Use the web - Where is the NPF discussion forum where players/coaches could ask questions and get responses like they do on this forum? The players are probably on facebook half of the day if they aren't working and if they had the venue they would probably love to respond, and how great would that be for players around the world to be able to post questions and get a response from players who get paid to play the game. I just joined the Facebook "FAN" site for the NPF and there are only 600 fans. I scrolled through and the only post that was from a player and the post was telling fans to go to the NPF stie to buy merchandise. There was only 1 video on the site. Other posts were all about the teams that folded and nothing from players/coaches saying "Hey all of you PHILLY fans sorry your team is gone but we'd love to have you rooting for our team now instead and although you may not live by us you can catch our games online at ....." or "Thank you for all of your support throughout the years in PHILLY I've signed a contract now with Orlando instead and would love to still have you rooting for me." etc. Use a simple/free medium that is used by MILLIONS of prospective fans. If they took advantage of it everyone on it would tell their friends to join.

Newsoftballdad - You sort of nailed part of the problem with the PHILLY team. They weren't from PHILADELPHIA, and their distance prohibited fans from PHILLY from watching them. Why didn't they call themselves the ALLENTOWN FORCE and give the town where they actually lived and played an identity. Let those in the town take ownership and feel like they had a stake in the team. The problem (as I understand) was that the owner wanted the big advertisers from PHILLY and didn't really think through the fan base to support the team. Do they really think that ESPN or the local news wants to come out and show 5 fans sitting in the stands? The teams HAVE to build the fan base and put butt's in the seats and everything else will fall into place.

 

[briand]

It also surprised me that the teams are mainly in the midwest and north. If the south is where many of the top level college players are coming from how is that they have no teams in Florida, Arizona, Texas or California.

If the concern is about tournament ball during the summer what about the league having games at some of the major ASA, NSA tournaments across the country. There is no exposure outside of the few markets where teams are located.

Put teams in destination type cities if they are going to play in the summer where they could draw vacationers during those months. Nothing against Akron, Ohio but it is not where I am going to plan a vacation so I can go watch a few pro games.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I know 2 girls that played, in the last 5 years. Both only stayed 1 season.

Travel arrangements were awful. (Much worse than there D1 programs)

Pay was $5,000 and many times they didn't receive their checks.

I went to a game when Tucson had a team and it was exceptionally boring. There was about 25 people in the stands. The promotional stuff in the shop was skimpy and few.

I had a better time going to HS games and watching Fowler pitch for free, then. Her HS really livened things up with music, an announcer and promotions, etc.

 

[treeguy]

I don't know a lot about the league or how it is set up, so forgive me if these things have been discussed before.

I would think the obvious thing for the league to do is try to align itself somehow with the MLB or at the least with the individual owners of some of the teams. During the summer the MLB stadiums sit empty and idle while the teams are away on road trips. This would be the perfect time to have fastpitch games in the stadiums. Weeknights while no young girls are playing tournaments. Put a temporary fence up and play. The stadiums already have all of the infrastructure, concessions, cameras and jumbo screens for re-play ability. Even if the MLB wanted no part of it, the team owners may be interested in the extra revenue a couple of games my produce, assuming the MLB can't restrict the use of the stadiums. The MLB team owners would have the perfect ability to promote the games. Every night that the stadium is full they have a captive audience of baseball fans that they can promote the game too using the announcers and jumbo screens. There has to be thousands of softball players sitting in those stands any given night.

The NPF could put on a traveling summer series in lots of select MLB stadiums. A two game weeknight series in a dozen cities around the country would expose a lot of people to the league. Depending on attendance and interest maybe some of the MLB owners would be interested in their own NPF team to make use of their empty stadiums on away games for the MLB team. In this economy they would have to be interested in the extra revenue.

 

[MTR]

I would think the obvious thing for the league to do is try to align itself somehow with the MLB or at the least with the individual owners of some of the teams. During the summer the MLB stadiums sit empty and idle while the teams are away on road trips. This would be the perfect time to have fastpitch games in the stadiums.

Weeknights while no young girls are playing tournaments. Put a temporary fence up and play. The stadiums already have all of the infrastructure, concessions, cameras and jumbo screens for re-play ability. Even if the MLB wanted no part of it, the team owners may be interested in the extra revenue a couple of games my produce, assuming the MLB can't restrict the use of the stadiums. The MLB team owners would have the perfect ability to promote the games. Every night that the stadium is full they have a captive audience of baseball fans that they can promote the game too using the announcers and jumbo screens. There has to be thousands of softball players sitting in those stands any given night.

Not going to happen in pro stadiums for at least two reasons: 1) It cost about $30K just to unlock the gates to some of these stadiums. Some have service contracts with unions which dictate personnel and pay for any events. And those cameras are owned by someone else who also have union contracts and production crews that make a pretty decent buck. 2) Newer stadiums have gotten away from carpet and are back using grass. They would have to remove the mound, cut out patches for bases and put up a temp fence which isn't the cheapest or easiest thing to do. MLB owners are too protective of their teams and facilities to do that without a nice payday. While this would be unbelievably great if it happened, you would see a money-pit and maybe you are unaware that there were serious issues with players and umpires not getting paid and some of them getting stuck with the bills for their rooms because the team owners defaulted with the hotels.

You are kidding yourself if you think the girls are not playing during the week. There are even some states which hold their state tournaments turing the week.

I think you would have a better shot with college stadiums. BTW, hundreds in the stands maybe. "Thousands" on a regular basis is a pipedream.

The NPF could put on a traveling summer series in lots of select MLB stadiums. A two game weeknight series in a dozen cities around the country would expose a lot of people to the league. Depending on attendance and interest maybe some of the MLB owners would be interested in their own NPF team to make use of their empty stadiums on away games for the MLB team. In this economy they would have to be interested in the extra revenue.

Sorry, but I think you are dreaming way beyond the reach of the game and that may be the problem. As much as I would love to see the game grow, it just isn't realistic to think there is such a large fan base throughout the country. Seems to me the PAC-10 and SEC would be a great host facilities and have a built-in fan base. Granted, the "owners" will not make as much money as they expect in return for their investment, but they certainly will not be losing the money they have been.

Of course, JMHO

 

[rowdy]

The lack of teams in California and Texas seems to be a problem. The teams they have don't really have a regional rivalry to enhance the interest so I don't see how they can expect to grow. I think if they have only four teams they ought to put them in four cities that are within a couple hindred miles of one another to build some type of local interest. This is a very tough topic and if the fix was easy or logical they would have already done it.