OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma slugger Jocelyn Alo energized college softball two years ago on the way to becoming the career home run leader and the sport’s visibility has increased ever since.
Six of the nine sessions at this year’s Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City set attendance records. Game 1 of the championship series set an attendance record that was broken the next day for Game 2. A total of 12,324 watched at Devon Park last Thursday as Oklahoma defeated Texas to claim a record fourth straight national title.
ESPN said the World Series finals games were the most watched on record. The two games averaged 2 million viewers, with Game 2 peaking at 2.5 million. The championship series had a 24% increase in viewership from the previous year.
Those who have built college softball are encouraged by the progress.
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“I believe the sport has done an amazing job of growing viewership,” said UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, who has led the Bruins to two of their record 12 national titles. “We’ve gotten into living rooms. People have fallen in love with the sport. There are conferences that dedicated great resources, funds, facilities, coaching salaries – all kinds of things to be able to support the sport.”
Still, there is uneasiness about the sport’s future.
The NCAA’s recent agreement with the major conferences to settle federal antitrust litigation sets a path for schools to begin directly paying athletes, a move that could have major consequences for sports beyond football and men’s basketball. Even with softball’s steady growth, some coaches are concerned money could be steered away from their sport and threaten its stability. Some worry that schools could drop the sport altogether.
Oklahoma’s Tiare Jennings (23), Rylie Boone (0) and Avery Hodge (82) celebrate the team’s win over Texas in the Women’s College World Series championship series on Thursday in Oklahoma City.
Cuts coming?
“We’re all hoping that it doesn’t hurt softball, that’s for sure,” said Texas coach Mike White, whose school has one of the largest budgets in college athletics. “We are in a growth stage, along with several other women’s sports that have taken off right now. We’re certainly afraid of (changes hurting softball), that’s for sure. We don’t want that to happen. We’re hoping each individual school sees the benefit of keeping the money in softball and keeping it as a premier sport.”
According to NCAA statistics and databases, 295 Division I schools offered softball in 2023 and there were 6,737 players, up slightly from 6,452 athletes at the same number of programs in 2019.
Inouye-Perez said she is confident her program will be fine, but was not sure about others in softball and beyond.
“I don’t fear the sport dying, but I do say I feel badly that I don’t believe the amount of teams are going to be able to sustain what’s coming in the future,” she said. “I don’t know. That’s just potentially what could happen because we’ve had conversations of understanding the impact of what could happen, knowing every school is going to have to find a way to be able to fund all Olympic sports.”
