Dropping the ball on the Pony Nationals

Can anyone explain to me why only FIVE teams from North Carolina are the only ones playing at the PONY Nationals in Cary? Unless I am missing something you would think that a BIG.....NATIONAL.....TOURNAMENT would be a huge draw locally. There is NO press coverage or local promotion that I am aware of, and this tournamet pumps $2mill into the Wake County economy. A GIFT opportunity for teams from NC to see how they stack up against some of the best competition from the North East, and no one goes. I don't get it. I wonder how many young girls would start playing ball if the press coverage and promotion from tornaments like this created a buzz like it does in other media covered youth sports....say like CASL (Capital Area Soccer League) gets from the N&O when their teams go play in national tournaments? Wake County has some awesome facilities for softball just going to waste.

 

....You are SOOOOO right!
1. Why NC teams are not there. I'd say that they chose to play in NSA, USSSA in Orlando, or ASA.
2. Pony has not been big time marketed in this area for a few years.
3. Raleigh dropped the Pony Nats, I think 14, 16, 18 age groups a couple of years ago only to bring in the MEAC or some conference basketball tournament that was a bust. We lost big time revenue for sure.

Suffices to say that it sucks!

My DD played in the Pony Nats. when she was 10ish and we had a ball.
Excellent competition and we did not have to fork out $3000 to go to Fla. for 10 days.

The trophy that was given to the final winner was taller than my kid.

I'm with you SCAL on this one.

Fish

 

We had the 16U PONY Nationals if I remember right. It was a great tournament occupying a number of facilities for about a week I believe. They painted the whole area with PONY logos. We could have kept it.

The way I remember it, they were not invited back because it was too much work to maintain the fields, etc. I guess we could use that work now.

I saw the recent PONY tv spot (barely) showing a pitcher throwing to her catcher (off field). Lasted about 10 seconds but at least it was mentioned.

Guess we need a thread about how to get the news coverage we deserve. If the PONY is bringing in $2 mil then I'm pretty sure the recent Cardinals tournaments came close to that. I'm guessing that the only reason we aren't getting the coverage is because the various teams and/or organizations don't have a PR department. I think we need something of that nature.

 

in our 7 +/- years in the sport I do not recall a Pony tournament west of Greensboro.. could be wrong. I think there was a Pony presence at one time down east.

This may account for it.

 

PONY Not Very Competitive

A few years back, PONY softball tournaments in the triad are were nothing more than glorified rec league tournaments. I have heard PONY is also like that around the country. There is just better competition in ASA, NSA and even AAU.

I'm sure the top PONY teams are very good, but as a whole, teams that play PONY are as good as most of the teams that play ASA or NSA in NC. Plus the tops teams in NC played in the NSA World Series, or have qualified for and will be playing in the ASA Nationals.

 

....I wouldn't bet your house payment on that Homer. I'm no expert on Pony.....uugghhhhhh, for that matter, I'm no expert on anything, but I can tell you from my limited experience years back that Pony Nats. were mostly Eastern USA teams and more like Conn., Penn., NJ, NY.
No slander to them at all.
What I think is important to recognize is that in the Northeast USA, they have a very limited window of time to get on a field.
To say that the talent level does not exist in these areas is just not the case.
So if these folks have to play in one org. or another because thats whats available then thats just the way it goes.
In Cal. there is an org. that is "rec. ball" based, where the Cal. TB teams play each other all year long. Then when the time comes to qualify for the
ASA Nats they have to fly all over the US to try to get in the big dance.

I said in #1 of my post, Pony does not market its program big time in this area.
Thats on them, not the talented kids who play in their tournaments.

Marlin

 

Marlin you are a little off base on a couple of things. First, there are plenty of teams from the northeast that qualify for the ASA Nationals. They have state tournaments and regional qualifiers just like we do in NC.

If you would look at the list of teams that are playing in the ASA Eastern nationals in Sterling, VA this week, I would say at least half are from the northeast.

Also, in CA, there are hundreds if not thousands of teams that play ASA rec. ball. These team are all ASA registered and this is one of the reason like CA and TX get so many berths to the ASA Nationals. In NC most of the rec. teams are little league or babe ruth.

There is talent on the northeast teams, but just not as much as there are in the south, The same can be said when you compare the south with the west. But I will say I feel our best at any age in NC can compete with the best out west. The difference is there are just more better players out west. Just like we have more here in the compared to the northeast.

Now if we were talking hockey.................

 

Plenty of competition

I have been working it for two days with Grand Slam...

Here's the teams I see.

14U
Virginia.... Shamrocks, Orion Hunter, Southside Sting
Md.... Heartbreakers
NJ... Team NJ, Jersey Witches
NY...Hudson Valley Express, LI Chargers

These teams have some pretty kick butt 18U teams

Plus Michigan, Ohio, New England...

You have a National Championship in your backyard...
We should be there.

 

....I'm off base alot. Did you take time to read my post? HHHHMMMMM, Looks to me that we're saying the same thing.
fish

 

To earn a berth to the Pony Nationals, you can win a tournament or you can host a tournament.

So, teams at the nationals could be anywhere from top-notch to rec-teams. Organizations were getting tired of going to a national and end up playing a rec team.