How many more teams can the state support before implosion?

Thank You Mc Hammers I was waiting for someone to stand behind the smaller org ,we are a new org this year too our girls have mostly been together now for 4 yrs too we are looking for this year too get a few more girls into travel to replace the ones we had move up ,our girls just want to have a better core of competition and have a chance ,the bigger org should respect that after all we are all in this for the girls right ,I didnt think it was about how big or popular you were ,I know as for my girls we will be ready and I hope to see some of these bigger org in the 2010 season hope they are ready .

New teams start up for a myriad of reasons. Whether they succeed or fail depends on whether there is a demand and if they can deliver what they promised, just like in any business.

At the younger ages, I see teams starting up to challenge themselves with greater competition. You usually don't see many new teams at the older (16U and 18U) age groups. Once these teams start playing travel tournaments, then the girls and parents see other teams and organizations and just what is available to them. Some of these families will move to other organizations/teams that they feel can help them meet the goals/aspirations that a girl might have.

At the younger ages, your team can get into just about any tournament to prove to your families that you can deliver what you promised. If you do not deliver, they will find an organization/team that does. I also have seen some new teams will disappear within a year or 2 because the founder/coach will move to an organization, new or established, so that they can get more resources (money, facilities, tournament opportunities) to help develop the girls.

A new team at 16U or 18U will find that they cannot get invited to Showcases because they have no history to prove their competitiveness. Showcases want very competitive teams. College coaches what to see their prospects playing in a highly competitive environment. Most of these teams will not last long.

The established organizations/teams do not hoard pitchers or other players. The families are free to move to any team that they wish, within sanction rules. Organizational teams have at least 2 quality pitchers per team because they know it will better their chances of playing late into Sunday. These girls know that they could go to any new team and be a #1 pitcher but the know that they will probably not get very deep into elimination play due to the stud pitcher running out of gas after back-to-back games.

So, can Ohio support all of these new teams? The market will determine that. Some will succeed, some will falter and disappear.

Hey I have no problem with anyone starting a new team or even being a smaller organization........I actually prefer smaller organizations as they tend to have to have good coaches who know how to develop players in order to succeed.......thus the reason for many of the bigger organizations handing out printed business cards to poach the players who rise to the top from the smaller groups......another topic tho.......my concern is for the teams still looking for 2 or 3 and hanging on hoping they will come.....what if they don't...that is when the problems arise for the smaller organization who has great intentions but no numbers.......just hope the girls hanging on are not forced to play local yocal tourneys just to be competitive.

I think the reason alot of these teams pop up is they play in a rec league where you have 2-3 girls that have/are great potential players on several different teams. And to see there true potential they most play at a higher level of competetion. And travel ball is the one place where you can showcase these girls and hopefully and offer from a top notch organization comes a knocking. Its also hard as a coach to coach at that level when you have 2-3 that are trying to take in every instruction you give them as a coach and the other 8-9 are just there for the fun of it and don't really care, and for these girls to get better they need the proper setting for them to reach there full potential and that is girls who love the game.

4carrs said:

If the parents are doing it for a "scholarship". then the are doing it for the wrong reasons. Save that $$ and invest it.

Click to expand...

While a scholarship shouldn't be the only reason to play, it will be very difficult to be seen if a girl does not play travel ball in exposure tournaments.

It is great to broaden the "base" of participants at the tournament level. That has to be "good". The rest will sort itself out, as previously stated.

I wonder how many "new teams or Organizations" relize when they take there rec ball or little league teams and go to travel ball they can only have 4 girl's from the same school at the high school level?

I think MC highlights the biggest problem that 14u teams will have starting up and that is where do you find and sign 2 to 3 pitchers to a team that don't have a long standing history. In fact last year my dd's team only had one horse and 1 pony even having a solid history. This year after a really successful season I saw over 20 pitchers tryout for her team in which we now have 2 horses and 3 ponies (who understand that they are ponies) postions are earned daily.

Most of the parents of pitchers have a huge investment in their dds for the pitching lessons and time invested in taking them to and from lessons and sitting countless days on a bucket to develop her to the horse status. So when they are shopping for a team they are looking at the prior seasons performance and what that team has to back their greatest of all treasures on this earth. In addition a parent looks for a team to have at least one other pitcher to help their dd out when she struggles, we all want our dd to be the ace but we don't want her to go down on a burning ship when she is off her game.

Continuing on Shumakers comment where a rec team has 2 to 5 solid players and 7 fun players how do they propose to attract 7 other solid players to a new 14u team without some sort of great bait "college players as coaches", "sponsorships", " free beer and wings for dad after the games at BBWs". Would it not be better for the solid players for the coach to simply get with another team with proven travel history and merge?

By the way I was a little guy 3 years ago wanting to start a 12u team we held tryouts adn selected players and everything. The problem was it all fell apart about 2 months later the players all wanted different things and it wasn't softball. These girls could have been a solid team this past year but it wasn't in the cards. So when I comment it is out of experience not out of lack of understanding.

jaguardan said:

I wonder how many "new teams or Organizations" relize when they take there rec ball or little league teams and go to travel ball they can only have 4 girl's from the same school at the high school level?

Click to expand...

Not true.......a team can take the whole HS team if they like...they just cannot do anything with them until June 1 through July 31 and their National Event not to exceed Labor Day. A HS Coach if taking a summer team can only take 4 of the girls from the same school with them.

I think you are are seing more teams pop up in southwest ohio becuase there wasn't that many teams 5 years ago. There are more girls playing fastpitch softball now. We started are organization 5 yeas ago (Northmont Thunder now Englewood Thunder) as a feeder system for our high school and an affordible team to start with at 14U. We saw that we could comptete very well at state in Little league so after 12U ended we created a team.In rec little league you will useually see the girls who get past 12 will either not really persue travel ball or will try to get better by playing tougher compition and will go to travel ball for 14U. We did it as a natural progression into softball. We weren't trying to be the best as soon as we were 8U or 10U. Our rec Little league actually had more players this year than in a few years. We started with real small then got bigger and bigger. I think a lot of the talent is pushed in rec by haveing good coaching around them. So even if you don't face that compitition all the tim are still getting better. I still think winning a state tournament for anybody in our little league would be a really good accomplishment.

I'm involved with 2 different travel organizations: 1. a local community driven 2. a large NWO travel organization. I have no problems with other organizations offering multiple teams, and other organizations popping up, but to me it clearly is 1. diluting the overall quality of teams 2. there isn't enough quality coaches to go around. Our community organization is lucky, we have a very good quality 16u coach, and our 14/12/10's are all coached by h.s. staff. Our larger NWO travel organization has worked very hard to have organizational coaches at all levels, of h.s. coaches, college coaches and former college players.

Giving kids opportunity is a good thing. A good point was made that lots of "teams are looking for those last 2-3 players". Our larger travel organization, Magic, was fortunate, they filled their rosters quickly, and look to be very high quality squads next season.

i like these threads everyone complaining how diluted travel ball is and i agree but 12u asa eastern nationals last year had 3 of top 4 from ohio they seem to be finding there way.some teams may be weaker but it is giving oppurtunity for more girls to develop into elite players and then they go find better teams to play on.but as a 12u coach myself we are still looking for 1-2 and alot of teams are in worse shape so i understand the complaints but good players will find you if you are doing things right

Miamisburg Softball said:

Not true.......a team can take the whole HS team if they like...they just cannot do anything with them until June 1 through July 31 and their National Event not to exceed Labor Day. A HS Coach if taking a summer team can only take 4 of the girls from the same school with them.

Click to expand...

you are correct but a high school coach can't take girl's from his/her high school team

Analogous to "How many more cars can the highways support before implosion?"

What if Honda hadn't sold cars in the US? The original Hondas were horrible by today's standards, and their survival depended on continuous improvement. There is an insane choice of new cars to choose from today, all price ranges - and all quality ranges. Nobody seems to be complaining about the power of choice there!

Once the market is saturated, the less desirable teams will weed themselves out. The talent curve in softball teams (similar to the car market) is heavily loaded toward the lower end, with fewer teams falling in the "elite" category. The cool thing is that every once in a while, a new comer gets into those top ranks.

A foreign car analogy for an American sport?

Keep those teams coming! We're all going to enjoy those 35-minute drop dead tournament games next year-- well worth the thousands we spend on travel ball. It's a joke now that most pool games are five innings or less unless two really good pitchers are deuling.

Team Japan... Australia... Canada... softball is no longer "just" an American sport. And today's Hondas quite possibly have more American made parts than a lot of so-called domestic brands. Yep - it's a crazy, mixed up world!