Now take Jen Schro as an example. She has her facility in Anaheim/Yorba Linda that has about 7 or 8 hitting/pitching tunnels in it as well as a space for her catching lessons and space for fielding lessons, taught by Morgan Stuart.
Catching classes are an hour long and average between 15-25 students in each class, broken down by age levels. Each student is paying 50 dollars a class.
For 20 students a class, that's $1,000 an hour.
Morgan's fielding classes are a little smaller, roughly 10-20 students, I'm not sure what the cost of her class is but Ill assume it's at least 25 dollars an hour. So 15 students at 25 an hour and that's 375 an hour.
4 of the hitting tunnels are used for hitting lessons by the facility, I have seen them have as many as 8 girls going station to station at a time during lessons and was told the lessons were 50 dollars for 30 mins. So if there are 12 girls an hour going through that you're at 600 dollars an hour.
The other tunnels look like they are leased out to pitching coaches who also charge 40-50 dollars per 30 minute lesson. The facility may make 10 an hour off of each tunnel, say it's 3 tunnels and that's another 30 an hour.
Just in lessons the place is doing over 2k an hour. Say it's open 5 hours a day and 5 days a week, that's 100k a week, 400k a month. They also have a pro shop selling bats, gloves, helmets, cleats as well as all of their marketing apparel but I won't guess what that makes.
400k a month, say even 50k of that goes to renting the space, that's still around 350k a month. Jen and Morgan are 2 of the coaches there I recognized, Jen's dad does the hitting lessons as well, but let's be very conservative and say that Jen and Morgan are each making 35k a month from PSW, not including their Package Deal traveling clinic show
35k a month is likely more than what a semi-pro, minor softball league is going to pay any of its players
Now Jen and Co and PSW have done a remarkable job marketing themselves to get where they are at.
Let's take my DD's pitching coach who hasn't marketed to the same degree.
She has a smaller facility with 2 tunnels in it. She charges 45 dollars per 30 min lesson and is always booked, 2 lessons at a time. She gives lessons from 3pm til 10 pm Mon - Thur. 28 hours a week, 180 dollars per hour is just over 5k a week,/20k a month. She does have assistant coaches, all former students of hers who are currently playing in college or are freshly out of college. Say she pays them 30 dollars an hour that still leaves her with over 16,000 a month from lessons. Even if her lease was 5k a month she still has 11k a month in earnings for herself.
How many minor league baseball players are making 11k a month to play baseball? And they play games every day in front of 2-20 thousand paying fans. The WNBA doesnt play every day in front of 2-10k paying fans, with a smaller roster size.
So the question that needs to be asked about a pro softball league is, "what sort of compensation are the players looking to make?"
If the players want just $5k a month, figure 20 player roster size, that's 100k a month
You need at least 2 teams to have a game so that's 200k a month, just in player salaries.
Now, say they play 3 games a week for a total of 12 games a month
The games will need to make 17,000 dollars in ticket sales just to pay the 2 teams player's salaries. You would need 1700 people to each pay 10 dollars to watch the game.
That is JUST to pay the players salaries. That does not include the coaches and team administrators salaries. It does not include the stadium's grounds crews, ticket sellers, and custodians wages. It does not include the cost of the uniforms, equipment, team travel, accomodations and per diems for traveling players.
Their lies the problem with a pro softball league. If you can get 2000 people to show up 12 times a month and pay at least 20-25 dollars, including children, each to go in and watch, you still would likely not keep the league afloat.