Sport fights uphill battle
While we were sleeping early Friday morning, softball was fighting for its life.
Representatives of the sport went before the International Olympic Committee Program Commission to make the case for softball’s reinstatement into the Olympics.
As you’ll remember, three years ago, the sport was voted off the Olympic program starting in 2012. A subsequent vote also went against softball. It has been eliminated from the Olympics along with baseball.
Don Porter, the man for whom Oklahoma City’s Hall of Fame Stadium is named, led the delegation that went in front of the program committee. He talked about the increase of national softball federations to 127, the improved education programs as well as the coaching and equipment being provided to areas where the sport is under-developed.
Porter, the International Softball Federation president, said that the vote to eliminate softball was a wake-up call for the sport.
“It was a chance for our sport to change and improve,” Porter said, according to an International Softball Federation press release. “And we have seized that chance with both hands. We have already changed and will continue to change for the better. We are constantly listening and learning.
“Our mission is to make softball the most inclusive team sport on the planet.”
There’s no doubt that softball is more of a global game now than it was three years ago. That, after all, was one of the knocks against keeping the game on the Olympic program.
So was the United States’ dominance. That ended, of course, earlier this year in Beijing when the Americans lost in the gold-medal match.
Despite all of that, softball still faces a steep uphill battle to get itself back on the Olympic program. It has to convince a lot of people that it deserves another shot, and it’s a lot more difficult to get back on the program than it is to stay on.
Thing is, this is about more than being able to see the sport every four years in the Olympics. What happens to softball at the highest level affects what happens at all levels. Softball will receive a small fraction of the funding it currently receives from the U.S. Olympic Committee, and that could hamper the sport’s development at the youth levels.
Will the Women’s College World Series still be popular?
Sure.
Will people still flock to Hall of Fame Stadium in the spring and summer?
You bet.
But softball as a whole faces serious challenges if the sport isn’t re-instated to the Olympic program. The International Olympic Committee plans to add two sports to the current roster of 26 Olympic sports when it meets in Denmark next October. Those sports would compete in the 2016 Olympics.
Softball needs to rejoin the Olympic program. It’s the only female-only team sport on the program, and it’s had no positive drug tests in major competitions. Those would be gold stars for the Olympics.
But the truth is, softball needs the Olympics much worse that the Olympics needs it.
The fight is far from over.
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Softball needs to return to the Olympics! 99.9% of the players at the collegiate level know they will never make a living from the game, it’s played for pure joy. That is a far cry from NBA players adopting a country every four years or track and field athletes bending every possible rule trying for an endorsement deal.