Virtual Olympic Congress

[ShawnC]

Also the WBC is (in my opinion) not an official tournament/title in the world of BB like WC, Continental Championships etc because it is an inivitational tournament with merchandising goals. MLB is not a federation. Their goal is not to develope BB or spread it to the world.

I understand this, and as you know, I agree that baseball-softball cooperation only makes sense if either wants to present a really strong case for returning in the near future.

The problem with the BWC, Intercontinental Cup and Continental Championships is that they aren't nearly high profile enough to help in presenting this proposal. If the BWC, IC and continental championships also held a parallel women's tournament/softball tournament then it may go some way towards building a case, but since the WBC is much more high profile than any of those tournaments, I think a WBC/WSC parallel competition would help seal any deal.

It's a pity though that the ISF, IBAF and the MLB and NPB don't look set to even entertain the idea of baseball-softball cooperating just for the Olympics, let alone in the world cups, intercontinental cups, continental champions and in the WBC in order to help get baseball-softball back into the Olympics. It's not like either party (IBAF or ISF) would really lose out (they would just be holding their international competitions at the same time is all and establishing a WSC). women's baseball and men's softball aren't anywhere near the level required in enough countries to help force either sport back into the Olympics and they probably won't be for at least a decade or two. So until then it would only seem sensible (to me) for them to cooperate (especially as the two sports are so close in character anyway). Either that or they each separately wait until they can present a stronger case for going back into the Olympics with strong men's and women's participation around the world - for the IBAF that may take 10-20 years but for the ISF that could be next to never.

[NewEnglandAmazins]

I agree that baseball-softball cooperation only makes sense if either wants to present a really strong case for returning in the near future.

I think you may find a recent entry from Dr. Schiller's Blog interesting:

Many of our member federations around the globe have historically been combined baseball and softball federations. Recently, the International Softball Federation directed the softball component of the federation to separate itself and become independent. We have heard numerous concerns from these combined federations regarding this directive. It is my belief that both softball and baseball would best be served by combining entities as a single sport with men's and women's disciplines for the 2016 Olympic Program.
Why? Combining these sports would allow the most efficient use of venues among the 2016 candidate cities, allow for significant financial returns for those same cities, recognize the efforts of the many youth programs such as Little League and others that support girl's softball, and offer the Olympic Games itself the opportunity to actually recognize three sports for the 2016 Games.
We will continue our efforts in discussions with the ISF to work in this regard. All of our member federations can contribute through your support of this effort. Did you know that MLB supports Women's Professional Softball?

Source: http://ibafbaseball.blogspot.com/sea...&max-results=7