Softball at the Colligate Level
The game of softball is a whole new world when being played at the college level. There are no rule changes from when at the high school or travel level except the umpires are a lot stricter and there is video game replay. College softball is broken down into three divisions which are division 1, 2, and 3. In college there are hour restrictions for when teams are allowed to practice as a team or participate in game play. For most of the fall and all of spring, during season, teams are limited to 20 hour weeks at the division one level and 18 hours at both division two and three. This allows for teams to play in games and practice as a team as well as lift with everyone. On the other hand, for a good chunk of the off season there are 8 hour weeks which means teams can only practice and lift for 8 hour a week. For me personally, here at Towson for th
e majority of the fall we practiced as a team for about 2-3 hours a day, lifted three days a week for an hour, and played scrimmages on the weekend. Then, when we went into 8 hours we moved to individuals, so we split up into groups to come in and do hitting for about 45 minutes and then do positional work with coaches for about 45 minutes with still lifting for three days a week. The college season usually lasts from February 9 to the absolute last day of play which is June 8. Everyone plays about 60 games for regular season, and then it goes into conference tournaments with the world series eventually following along. I am very excited for my first season coming up this spring even though it will be very tiring and exhausting, but I know it will be so rewarding in the end.
Article to read: https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/womens-college-world-series-ncaa-growth.html
Softball at the Professional Level
The league for professional softball is the W.P.F. which stands for “Women’s Professional Fastpitch.” It was originally discovered by the USA softball, USSA, and Smash It Sports organizations. Additionally, within the last couple years there has been another professional league added to softball which is called “Athletes Unlimited.”
In the WPF, the set up is like the draft of any other sport where coaches will draft players who graduated college and are looking to still play softball at the professional level. On the other hand, the “Athletes Unlimited” is where a group of players are named captains of the team and they can draft their teams each week for a series of games. Then, during the week of games and everything players and teams can earn points with whoever having
the most points by the end of the season wins the championship in the end.
The only thing about playing softball professionally is that the pay is not nearly as substantial as the NFL or the MLB. The top earning of a player is about 63,000 dollars which is not the best for playing a professional sport. On the bright side, softball is growing tremendously over the years with the world series breaking viewership records and passing the men’s world series by a lot. Also, college softball is making its debut on some high end television networks with world series last year being on ABC channel and with it being announced it is coming back to the olympics in 2028