not sure why some think softball will be gone in 5 years... our local rec. is bigger than it has been in the last decade. why do some think it is fading away?
I would say if you look at several areas one will see a trend. Naturally; some areas have a strong recreational programs that is involved with primary age athletes to keep a sound foundation. These are also generally consistent areas for HS ball as well.
#1 Recreational Leagues/Teams
In the early 2000s our local area (Colerain) supported 5 local recreational parks that would get one to three teams in each age range for girls softball.
About 2008 the large league in SWO folded that had about 30 parks and a couple hundred teams. Most areas in SWO are now in one of two leagues, Greater Miami with around 10 communities and north Cincy with around 20 communities within an hour or so drive of Cincinnati.
If you go to the league's website's not all areas field teams in each age group (some only have HS and 12U). In my direct local area if a family wants to stay age specific depending on coaching they may have to go to another team within Colerain or just take them out of the area or join one of the shrinking catholic teams.
We have 4 large Catholic churches in Colerain that has their own fields/teams. These teams were a big rivalry with the local community rec leagues but not so much anymore since they too are struggling with numbers in softball. Volleyball and Soccer is staying strong though. .
http://www.gwacsports.com/
#2Travel Teams
From 2005-2015 there was about 6 A level organizations and more than 20 B level organizations in our area. These organizations fielded teams in several age groups some 10u through 23u. What I mean by A level teams/organizations is the goals of the organization was to play in an ASA,PGF upper tier National and played a qualifying schedule around the Midwest-South East to do so. The B level teams/Organizations would stay in Ohio maybe venture to Columbus Indiana or NKY generally a 2 hour or so range of play. Going through tryouts it looks like its down significantly with A / B organizations.
#3
High School / Middle school
At the HS level outside of your large suburban districts in SW Ohio a lot of schools struggle to field Varsity and JV programs where 10 years ago schools had 2 or more programs easy. Working with the REDS they tried to grow softball by offering leagues at their facility in the fall or trying to get recreational teams to play in other leagues but even with reduced cost (or, in some cases no cost) they still struggled to field the number of teams they were hoping for and it was evident in the CMAC where several schools could not field a team or folded the team after a few games.
The Travel teams for the REDS do well but those kids would be playing for another travel organization if they were not with an RBI team.
Go to the OHSAA website and search programs
http://officials.myohsaa.org/Outside/SearchSchool. Many have no middle school programs a lot only have varsity. Mt. Healthy folded softball mid season. WW in the ECC dropped JV and struggled with only 12 ladies for varsity.
#4 Social media/websites
Sites like the SBZ don't seem to have the traffic they had 10 years ago. I remember you could go to the big 4 softball sites and there was daily chatter / discussions in a variety of areas. Now it is mostly teams looking/tryouts that gets hits or moderators starting threads to get hits. When you go to the USSSA or other sanctioning body sites search your area and look at how many teams are registered. Seems to me there is a decline over the past 10 years especially in the 14 and up ages.
#5
Tournaments
There are a lot of tournaments no longer running some due to last year cancelations others because they cannot field enough teams to cover expenses or find umpires. This is not just the local smaller under 10 teams per age group events. Even some large 30 team per age group events are dropping or shrinking to half the numbers they once drew. Some of the bigger events are surviving because they locked in fields, umpires etc. and can absorb teams that may have been playing in B/C events now playing A/B events. I took a quick look at the USSSA B/C team list for the Greenville event June 11th-13th. I was surprised to see a lot of these 14/16U teams that use to be sanctioned A just a few years back and would be at Lasers on this date...
#6
Fall ball/leagues and practice locations
We use to have a half dozen options locally for fall ball weekday evenings or weekends that were always filled. Now its a struggle to find one or two leagues and most of them are blended. 14 and up 12 and under.
Training facilities are also closing up or catering to teams that are part of an organization to keep cash flow. We had 3 nice ones with batting cages and turf that had good rates that has closed up over the past 5 years.
Why the decline?
IMO, Cost and commitment needed for softball is the main reason. Not only for players and parents but for coaches as well. As the opportunities shrink coaches have to look harder for talent, tournaments etc.
(Seems like every organization is looking for coaches same with HS/Middle school). Second is other sporting options or ladies deciding to leave sports all together especially at 15 and up...
The void has also created situations with Pitching and competitive balance that is nowhere near where it was 10 years ago.
Yeah there were perianal losing programs but if you go to the GWOC, GMC, ECC, SWOC websites and look at the game scores it seems like there were more 15+-0 games than I can remember.
This year was so bad that some schools scheduled league DH on week nights with the lesser programs. I cannot ever remember HS varsity programs in our area playing league DH during the week but it happened this year.