Evaluating The ISF's Plan

As some know, softball has been removed from the docket of Olympic sports.  Given the morass of corruption that is the Olympic decision-making process, we can't truly know what was going on there, but the ostensible reason was the lack of competition.  The U.S. simply dominated, with only a few other teams even in contention.  The International Softball Federation rightly concludes that it needs to address the problem at the local level if it wants softball back by 2016.  Its website lays out a ten point plan (PDF warning) intended to convince the IOC that softball can become a truly international sport.  This plan seems to be a long-term venture not keyed to immediate competitive improvement per se but to making softball a "truly international" game. 

It is probably dangerous to hold the IOC to its actual rhetoric in this area.  Since almost every aspect of the plan will not affect competitive balance for the immediate future, the ISF still leaves itself open to the charge of one-team dominance at the highest levels for at least the next seven to ten years. The blueprint is not itself a technical document, which means details are hard to come by.  The main goal is to increase the number of nations with softball programs.  The ISF has taken marked steps forward in targeting the Middle East, and this is commendable (though we need to keep an eye on the ignorance factor; I have heard more that softball is going to be successful in the Middle East because "Islam" does not allow "its women" outside without being totally covered, which of course is a myth.  The Iranian government is not Islam).  Likewise the plan to provide new opportunities for disabled players and nations who have faced national disasters is a way of upholding the traditional ideal of the Olympic spirit.  Three  aspects of the plan which will, I think, increase interest and participation are increased television coverage, separating softball federations from those of other sports in order to build identity, and more international ISF leadership.  The more diverse the international structure, the more nations have a proprietary stake in not embarrassing themselves, or that's the theory. 

The major flaw is at no time does the plan ever mention the distribution of funding per se, or how it's supposed to be overcoming the barriers to participation that come from cultural and economic factors.  The ISF can only allocate a certain amount of money, and the national federations have to pony up the rest, as well as providing scheduling and player development.  These are problems that have kept international soccer from having successful developing-nation programs, and the problem is greater with a sport like softball that requires a specialized space and equipment.     I would like to see a more specific  program that is not geared toward IOC rhetoric, and I'm sure that's forthcoming.  Meanwhile the ISF is putting a lot of trust in what it was told by the IOC, while I think the decision was probably influenced by a number of less-than-savory factors as well as those anumbrated.