Pro Softball's New Pitch

Reprint from womenSports

By Lou DeCosta

The league almost struck out last season, but this year is a whole new ball game.

If there’s anything more harrowing than facing a 100-mile-an-hour pitch, it might be keeping a new professional league from striking out in its first season. If, as on Broadway, success is survival, then the International Women’s Professional Softball Association (IWPSA) was definitely a hit last year. In the first such women’s professional team-sport enterprise, ten teams started the season and ten teams finished it, though one team changed ownership and several others have since departed. All the players received their full regular-season salaries, a feat not matched by several other infant enterprises, most notably the World Football League.

Most import, women’s pro softball is back again this season. The players have been reshuffled, but it’s still one of the best games in town as well as one of the best-kept secrets. To attract fans, a league needs exposure. But it was precisely money and publicity that were lacking last year as the IWPSA struggled through its first season.

“We needed about 2,500 people a game to break even,” said one owner. “By the middle of the season, I’d have been happy with 1,000.” Five teams averaged fewer than 1,000 fans per game, and one team, Pennsylvania, drew under 500. The best attendance record was in Buffalo, where the Breskis averaged 1,530.

National media attention was light to nonexistent all season, and a few teams had trouble even getting adequate local coverage. The wire services ho-hummed the new league and refused to carry even the scores. “Most of the teams in the league had the same problem,” said Fred Huebner, owner of last year’s Chicago team and now a promotional consultant for Santa Ana. “The league got started late, and we only had about 30 days to throw everything together. There just wasn’t time enough to establish a promotional base.”

But this year the key words are exposure and promotion. Owners and players alike agree that without increased attendance, the IWPSA cannot survive. “If I can get people out to one game, they’ll be back for more,” say San Jose owner John Bruno. “I’ve got to promote. We should face up to the fact that we’re now in the sports entertainment business, and treat it as such.”

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