I came across a Tweet from a really high level softball player that simply asked/stated did it “bother” any other softball player when they see a baseball player signing hundred(s) million contracts, and frankly stating if she was male she would be a millionaire too. She is probably right, she has great talent and would get that type of payoff if there was a comparable opportunity for female athletes like Major League Baseball. However, that seems to be the issue at hand, there simply isn’t.
MLB has been around for roughly 150 years. That is a long time to be doing business, particularly a sports related business/league. They didn’t start out paying players (probably overpaying players honestly) hundreds of millions of dollars as they do today. That was a brand built over three centuries now. It didn’t sprout up out of thin air with mega-stadiums, major TV contracts, hundred dollar tickets, and $12 hotdogs. It started from nothing with probably great similarities of what softball players are going through now looking for relevance and financial worth as a professional in their sport. Players having other jobs that support themselves as they chase their professional dream (see minor league players in today’s time for example) was the norm then as it is for softball players now. MLB built itself into what it is today 150 years later as entity that averages bringing in around $10 billion annually. Baseball is a great sport, softball (in my humble opinion) is a better sport.
Softball ultimately has to build what baseball has in not only name, but functionality and then success. There could be some not-so-easy/lean years doing it before one can reap the same financial benefits as baseball does today. It’s not going to be handed to softball or any sport that hasn’t built its brand and attractiveness to a public willing to spend their disposable income to see the product. There has to be 40,000 fans willing to buy that ticket, and pay for $25 parking, and buy a $14 beer, the $9 ice cream, a $100 authentic game jersey, and anything else the kiddies want when they come watch. The public have to be willing to hand their dollars over for something worth their hard earned buck. A sport has to be able to get the TV contracts that come from advertiser money and interest in the game, and them willing to pay for their 30 second spots during these contests as millions of fans/potential customers tune-in. Lord knows I would like to see all that for this great game I’ve dedicated my life to. However, it’s not going to happen until you build it to that point as not just a watchable game and on-field product, but something that sells itself as a spectacle and vehicle for potential advertisers and investors.
So how can softball get to the point of being relevant and a profitable option as a sport on the professional level? It can’t be expected for a professional softball league to thrive or grow with 4-5 rotating teams (often different each year and half of which are national team players from other countries being compensated by those countries) that draws a hundred fans on a good night to be able to pay out millions of dollars to their athletes. It’s just not feasible, the math just doesn’t work. What’s the answer? For that matter where does it even start? Those truly are the million dollar questions. Whoever figures it out, I’m sure will make a million or two themselves getting professional softball out of the purgatory of non-relevance we see it in currently. However, until that happens you can’t expect to have millions of dollars just handed over or it simply fall from the sky because there are a great athletes and players out there that seem to be well deserving based on their talent and work. The system to which makes that happen for them has to be in place and just as strong as the attributes as a player and product.
It’s also hard to question with any reasonably why a male athlete that plays in a league 150 years old, with generations worth of fans, with corporate and media backing, that plays in front of tens of thousands of fans 162 times a year, shouldn’t make the dollars they do. However, I understand the frustration of the female athlete that is in NO WAY making currently what they are worth or their talents demand. That has to start with that support system in place that I mentioned earlier however. The professional option in this country as it stands today is stagnant and seems not to be growing (or maybe at a snail’s pace and non-noticeable). I’ll also say they haven’t been at it 150 years yet either, so what is to be expected in a sport very much still in its infancy on the grand scheme of it all. I do see a league abroad in Japan that relies on corporate sponsorship to make their league go. Most of that league seems to made in the image of the old “Industrial” men’s and women’s leagues and teams where major companies would basically field a highly competitive company team. Many great men’s and women’s player were employed in these companies to work and play softball back when these teams and the competition was a serious as any professional league. It seems the Japanese have a model that is working for them very well and even to the point they have attracted many great U.S. born athletes to their league. Can this model work in the U.S.? Has anyone tried?
This won’t be one of my more popular pieces (cue the triggered naysayers) even though I’m simply stating fact about the current plight of softball athletes in this country. But we have to get past the “He has it, so she should have it too” divide. This is not the collegiate level where all (supposedly) are equal. I get the argument of self and professional worth, I get the fight for equality, but this isn’t the collegiate level. It’s business and finances plain and simple. When a business can’t be backed up scientifically, mathematically, or economically; the likelihood of the payouts professional softball players are looking for just aren’t feasible. Are these great softball athletes worth more than they are making? A MILLION TIMES OVER YES AND WITH NO DOUBT IN MY MIND!!!!
Once again you have to package a good product to sell the public and they (along with investors and advertisers) have to buy it, and that’s the bottom line. Unfortunately for this current generation of great softball professionals (much like the early generation of baseball professionals), they might not be able to reap what they are sewing now. For future professional softball players and the game of softball as a whole it could (and with much hope of this writer) be different.