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| SOFTBALL LINKS |
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Business
by Dave
Thursday, June 04, 2009
It is make it or break it time for the women's National Pro Fastpitch league. The season opened last night with games streamed live on MLB.com. Read about that here:
"National Pro Fastpitch league set to start"
You can see the schedule and watch games from here:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/mediacenter/npf.jsp
There is a game to watch just about any given night from now until the middle of August. These are apparently free. It's an interesting concept but I really don't see how this is going to make a huge difference to the success of the league.
I wish I knew absolutely what would be needed to make NPF successful. I say that not as a person wishing to profit from professional softball but rather as one who wishes it was widely available the same way baseball is. We tune into baseball almost every night out of habit. If there were something else to watch, I suspect we might watch something else. But let's face it, TV pickings are pretty slim these days.
Still the NPF seems to lack that special something that would make it compelling. Some believe the issue is talent which is resolved this year with many of the Olympians and top ex-college players now in the league. But I do not believe that is the issue. When I first saw an NPF game, I was impressed with the talent despite the fact that name players were not necessarily involved with the league. But I didn't know any better. I was impressed with the talent despite some of the country's top talent not being in the league.
So I do not think women's softball missed a potential huge success in years past because they didn't draw top talent. It has to be something else.
I'm not entirely sure anybody is making money at anything these days. I work with a guy who is involved in the music industry. He plays and produces for his own record label. His group had the number 1 reggae album on the Billboard music charts for 6 weeks and then dropped down to number 3 this week. The band is travelling the world right now promoting the album and playing before large crowds though he cannot because he has an infant daughter. He has played before crowds as large as 50,000 on 4 continents. He needed to take some time off the other day on order to do some national TV show. This is the guy's second successful album. But he has to work with me to pay the bills. He'd like to purchase a small home in which he and his wife can bring up their daughter. But he can't get a mortgage because he doesn't make enough money!
The dearth of worthwhile TV and film ventures shows that nobody is experiencing particularly much success at anything in the entertainment business these days. I received a phone call from a TV producer a few weeks back which pertained to one of my web sites. The producer is starting up a show on ABC and she wanted my site's help with some of the content. My partners and I agreed to help in whatever way we could. Our compensation for such help was exactly zero. The only thing we would get in return was basically promotion of our site, from which we make very little despite its relative high popularity.
That's not particularly relevant to girls softball in general or professional softball in particular, but the point is, it's tough to make a living out there. I'm not sure any new venture is going to be successful no matter how good the product it has to offer is. There just has to be an angle.
So I'm wondering what angle NPF can find to make its product compelling. There are a number of, shall we say, structural infirmities NPF experiences which keep attendance at games down. For one thing, most games are played at the height of tournament season. We would love to go watch some professional games but we're on the road most of the time. We play all day Saturday and then as long as possible Sunday, while never knowing if we'll be on the road towards home at 9:30 am or pm. Then its back to the grind Monday through Friday with another tourney next weekend. We just don't have the time nor will to get into the car and drive the hour and a half to the closest NPF venue to go catch a game.
For another structural problem, games are typically very low scoring which does not appeal to the general public. This year's college game definitely seemed to have more run production than in years past and I expect that made the games more interesting to outsiders. Purists are just as intrigued by 1-0, extra inning games as the average person is by 10-9 slugfests. But folks who are not rabid softball fans fall asleep through multiple side-strike-outs. Having top pitching talent in the league is a means to accomplish the ends of having even more frequent low scoring affairs. That can't be good for commercial success.
Finally, while the league tries to get the word out about their games, I do not feel as if anyone outside the softball community really knows about NPF. NPF was mentioned during numerous telecasts of the WCWS games which draws a more general audience but it wasn't shoved into our face with a snazzy, flashy commercial assault. Instead we were force fed commercials for five hour energy, take-classes-in-your-pajamas spots, NCAA athletes are going pro in lots of things besides sports, or whatever ESPN could sell in packages. We weren't attacked with NPF commercials. And that's probably because the league couldn't afford to do that.
If I were a business person trying to craft a successful strategy for professional softball, I think I would look to a couple items. First of all, while there is some question about the commercial success of the WNBA, there is no denying that their attendance far surpasses our sport. I would try to emulate whatever I thought they were doing right to draw spectators. If you get a fan out to the park, the probability that they'll tune in to a telecast goes way up in a hurry.
The WNBA runs at a time when men's basketball is pretty much in hibernation. That could be one factor for success. NPF deliberately begins its schedule right after the WCWS. That's pretty smart since not only do they not have the college game to compete with, they also take advantage of the immediate drop off in softball games viewable on TV. Oh, but wait a minute, NPF games aren't on TV, they're on the web.
I dunno about you but we have a place we go at night after dinner. It has comfortable chairs and a TV. Our computer screens are someplace else. I expect that one day in the not too distant future, our TV will interact with our computers. But today it doesn't, at least not really. We go sit and watch TV and if we want to use computers and the internet, we have to get up and go over there. That would break down our normal routine.
Secondly, I do not think the internet is the potential money maker everyone supposes it could be. Streaming games is no substitute for broadcasting on TV. You've got to work towards television and stay away from the internet unless you have a money making model there. I may be missing something but I don't see where the cash flow is going to come from on the MLB webcasts.
Third, the most successful softball broadcasts seem to be the WCWS, the Olympics and the World Cup. The WCWS has special appeal because folks like to cheer on their old school; they dislike that conference; or they just get attached to certain teams while watching games on the various cable networks during January - April. When May comes around and moves towards the WCWS, everything sort of builds to a climax. We care who wins the WCWS.
With respect to both the Olympics and the World Cup, its always us against them. People find it relatively easy to cheer fdor their own country, that is, they cheer for the US against whomever, regardless of who those ladies are on their team. Then they get to know the players on their country's team and then they really start caring. I'm not sure you can say that about the NPF.
I would like all the real softball fans to stand up and step away from the crowd. OK, now just you fans, quickly, without any thought at all, take the following multiple-choice quiz and write down your answers on a piece of paper as quickly as possible:
1) How many teams are in the NPF? 8 / 4 / 2 / 5
2) On which team does Michele Smith play? New York / Los Angeles / Miami / None
3) Which softball sanctioning body sponsors a team in the NPF? ASA / ISA / NSA / USSSA / ISA / None
4) If you went to a typical game on an average night, how many other fans would you expect to be there? 200 / 500 / 1,000 / 2,000 / 7,000
5) How long does the typical game last? 1 hour / 1.5 hours / 2 hours / 2.5 hours / more than 2.5 hours
OK so that's kind of a fundamental quiz focusing on the types of knowledge any baseball or basketball fan would know. If you asked the same sort of questions about MLB, most likely several million people could answer with approximately the correct answers. Yet I doubt if even just a few thousand softball fans were chosen at random, as many as half could get half the answers correct.
I can't say that I knew before today how few teams there were in the league. The first time I went to watch an NPF game several years ago, I had heard about some gal named Michele Smith and I expected that she was really something to see. I expected to see her play for the local NPF team. She didn't.
Right now I have no idea which teams include Cat Osterman, Jennie Finch, Monica Abbott, etc. I could go cheat and look through the article and perhaps others to learn the answer but my softball-only playing daughter can tell you who Manny Ramirez plays for, how many games he has been suspended, who his team's manager is, that the Dodgers have the best record in baseball right now, that the team used to be based in the New York area, etc. AND, please understand that we don't watch National league games in our household.
If I went to watch an NPF game and saw a team sp0onsored by USSSA, I would assume the game was an exhibition. I wouldn't think it was an official league game. But USSSA is sponsoring a Florida team this year in NPF. That's like Little League sponsoring the Montreal Expos. Nuff said.
I went to watch a game several years ago which had I think almopst 2,000 fans in attendance. That's not too shaby. But it does not compare to the 8,000 folks at the low class A minor league baseball games we go to. The worst crowd I have ever seen at a minor league baseball game was probably 4,000 on a rainy cold night, at an unaffiliated team, etc., etc. The 2,000 at the NPF game was probably one of their top crowds for the year. I know they couldn't have exceeded that by much because there was no place to put any more people. Another game I went to had closer to 400 fans. I've been to many high school games with bigger crowds than that.
I happen to be a fan of college basketball. I don't like the pro game at all. But aside from the style of the game and the attitude of the players, the one thing I know I can count on with college hoops is the games are always going to be about 2 hours from start to finish. Baseball is always a crap shoot. I grew up in the era of 2 hour plus MLB games. Sure, many went longer. But it would have been strange to see anything go 3 hours or longer. On one night, we almost decided to go to an NPF game. We were a little miffed that we couldn't get it together in time to go. But you know what? That game went something like 22 innings and lasted well into the night. We would have had to leave early. Ordinarily, I would think that's a good thing, a great value for the entertainment dollar. But this game had very, very few baserunners. It was a pitcher's duel. If I'm not mistaken, both starters lasted most of the game. The majority of outs did not involve a ball hit into play. The win was determined by an error. Even the biggest purest would say that was a bore, a long bore. That game wore on for well over 4 hours.
I really wish the NPF well. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this sport cannot really grow up without a professional league. I would really like to have some sort of outlet for watching fastpitch softball, preferably in person but I would take TV. My internet device does not interface with my TV. We sit in front of the TV at night. I want to watch great players but not just great strike-out pitchers nmowing them down, one after the other. I want to be compelled to watch professional softball games. I want there to be large crowds, 5,000+, at these games with everyone whipped into a frenzy. I want to care about the outcome of these games. If it would take shameless promotion, I would accept that. If it involved antagonists from Japan, Canada or wherever, that might make it more interesting. If the league's schedule did not conflict with my kids' tournament schedules, that would be best.
I want the NPF to succeed. But I really do not think they are right now. And if they don;t succeeed right now, I expect they'll be gone at the end of the year.Labels: NPF
 
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