Roser-Lefevers takes over the program from longtime head coach Michele Frew, who retired on September 2nd.

Arguably the greatest player to wear Tars colors, Roser-Lefevers played for Frew from 2008-11 and helped Rollins win the Sunshine State Conference Championship annually from 2009-2011. Roser-Lefevers earned First Team All-SCC honors in all four years of her career and was named the league’s Freshman of the Year in 2008. Roser-Lefevers earned NFCA All-American First Team honors in 2009 and 2011 and was recently elected to the Rollins Athletics Hall of Fame.

Following two seasons as head coach at Mars Hill, Roser-Lefevers rejoined the coaching staff at Queens in Charlotte this offseason where she previously spent four seasons as an assistant coach and associate head coach. Roser-Lefevers helped lead Queens to three consecutive South Atlantic Conference Championship appearances and one NCAA DII Southeast Regional appearance during her previous tenure on the program’s coaching staff. In 2018, the Royals recorded thirty-five wins, a program record, and earned their first-ever national ranking.

Prior to her first stint at Queens, Roser-LeFevers was the assistant coach at Seminole State College in Orlando for the 2015 season, helping the team amass a 51-9 record which ranked second in the state of Florida and fourth in the nation in the last NJCAA regular-season poll of 2015.

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Following the official announcement of their respective programs joining the Big 12, JWOS spoke exclusively with the head coach of each program to get their thoughts on the move and what it means for their programs.

BYU head coach Gordon Eakin

“Joining the Big 12 is a great honor. The Big 12 is an incredible athletic conference in every sport. Softball in the Big 12 is always at the highest level and with the addition of UCF, Houston and BYU the competition level will continue to excel. Joining the Big 12 has already improved and lifted our recruiting. At BYU we have everything a prospect could want in the college experience, and now we belong to an incredible conference. Let’s go!”

Houston head coach Kristin Vesely

“The American Athletic Conference is known as a top softball conference. Going into the Big 12, it gives us Power 5 expectations.

We expect our program to go into the Big 12 and be competitive and compete for conference championships. That is unwavering from our staff and our Athletics Department.

When you talk about the Big 12, you are talking about top-quality softball. You are talking about opening the door to top-notch recruits, and you are talking about student-athlete welfare, playing schools within drivable distances. You are talking about bringing in revenue, which will enhance the student-athlete experience while they are at the University of Houston. You are talking about continuing to build the resources for the program to be successful.

This is nostalgic for me. I played in the Big 12 and competed for my entire college career. Being able to go back to the Big 12, knowing what it takes to win, is exciting.”

UCF head coach Cindy Ball-Malone

“First, I must acknowledge the role that the American Conference has played in our development as a softball program and as an athletic department. The competitive nature of the American conference is why we believe we will be able to compete for Big XII championships right away. We have been competing against ranked conference opponents and multiple regional teams within the American Conference every year that I’ve been at UCF. 

We are excited for our journey into the Big XII and believe our new conference membership is the gateway to what’s possible for future student athletes who want to compete for National Championships. UCF, the city of Orlando, and the state of Florida provide student athletes everything they could dream of when it comes to a complete college experience.  Our membership in the Big XII builds on the opportunities our student athletes already have when it comes to exposure, recognition, and a successful career after college softball.  

We have benefited from the hard work and vision of a university and administrators who weren’t afraid to dream big. Our program has been ready to match their boldness by making our brand known across the country. We are here. We are ready. We are Knight Nation.”

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The game, between Muskogee, Oklahoma and Chesterfield, Virginia brought in a crowd of 409,000 viewers, according to ShowBuzzDaily.com. While that number is down from the 2019 Championship game, Oklahoma’s 9-1 win is the 3rd-most-watched Little League Softball championship game ever.

Also worthy of note: the 2021 title game started at 5 pm Eastern time, compared to a 10 pm Eastern start in 2019 when the LLSWS was held in Portland, Oregon and the Pacific time zone. These was no game in 2020 due to COVID-19 and this year’s event was held in Greenville, North Carolina.

Muskogee’s championship victory was the 2nd-most-watched program of the day on any ESPN channel and any cable sports channel, finishing behind only Red Sox/Yankees which aired directly following the LLSWS title game.

Interestingly, the championship game between Oklahoma and Virginia was not the most popular LLSWS game on television this year; that title went to the semifinal game between Robinson, Texas and Chesterfield, Virginia, which drew 413,000 on ESPN2. That semifinal game finished 3rd in total viewership on its day of airing, behind popular opinion show Pardon the Interruption and the NBA Summer League Championship Game, both of which aired on ESPN.

TV Audience Numbers for the last five Little League Softball Championship Games: 

2016-  Championship Game  193,000  on ESPN 2
2017-  Championship Game  360,000 on ESPN 2
2018- Championship Game 535,000 on ESPN
2019- Championship Game  473,000 on ESPN
2021-  Championship Game 409,000 on ESPN

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When the 2022 college softball season gets underway, there will be a new tournament on the schedule in February.

The Northern Lights/Southern Nights Invitational will make its debut on the weekend of February 11-13 in Leesburg, Florida. The inaugural tournament field will feature teams from three of the “Power Five” conferences, including the SEC and ACC.

“Women’s college softball is considered a spring sport, but the season begins in deep winter, creating a disadvantage for northern teams,” stated a press release announcing the event. “To be considered for the event, teams must be either top-25 programs or other top-RPI teams who have legitimate aspirations to make the post-season NCAA tournament. In 2022, the eight-team field will include three teams who lost in last year’s super-regional finals, and three other participants of the 2021 tournament, creating a strong field from top to bottom.”

The full field for the tournament’s first year includes Missouri, Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Liberty, Eastern Kentucky, and UConn.

In the Circle podcast was the first to break the news of this tournament. Northern Lights/Southern Nights is an event created by Mark Allister. The tournament director is Skeeter Gentile. The event will be run by Alison Strange, host and manager of The Spring Games.

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When you watch softball in the Tokyo Olympics, you will hear familiar voices calling it.

NBC officially announced in late June that Beth Mowins, who has worked 27 Women’s College World Series championship tournaments, will call Olympic softball alongside analyst Michele Smith. Smith is a two-time United Stated Olympic gold medalist in softball; she and Mowins have worked together at ESPN since Smith joined the network in 1995.

Also part of the softball coverage will be Jessica Mendoza, who won a gold medal in 2004 and a silver medal in 2008 as part of Team USA. Mendoza will report on-site in Japan for softball coverage, while Mowins and Smith will call the action remotely from NBC studios in NBC Sports Group’s International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Connecticut.

For Mowins, this will be her first time as part of NBC’s Olympic coverage; Smith was the color commentator for NBC for softball in 2008, the last time that the sport was in the Olympic Games.

Mendoza is also making her Olympic broadcasting debut, and she will report on other Olympic sports for NBC in the role. Mendoza covered the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics for Yahoo! Sports, and has covered softball as well as additional sports since joining ESPN. Mendoza has served as color analyst for Major League Baseball and also worked as a sideline reporter for additional sports at ESPN.

Other notable broadcasters that have connections to softball will also be part of the Olympic television coverage. Jenn Hildreth, who has called softball for several years and called the most recent postseason with Brittany McKinney, will be part of NBC’s remote play-by-play roster for Olympic soccer. Lisa Byington, who called Big 10 softball, will also serve as a remote play-by-play broadcaster for soccer coverage. Courtney Lyle, who has called softball for ESPN and anchored studio coverage from the Women’s College World Series in June, will be the new play-by-play voice for Olympic field hockey.

Click here to view the full NBC TV and streaming schedule for softball.

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If head-to-head TV numbers operated under softball rules, then it would be a run-rule victory for the Women’s College World Series over the Men’s CWS.

The 2021 WCWS averaged 1.2 million viewers, which easily topped that men’s counterpart, which gathered 755,000 viewers on average.

Digging deeper, the WCWS Championship Series between Oklahoma and Florida State averaged 1.84 million TV viewers, which again easily topped the men’s version; the baseball championship series between Mississippi State and Vanderbilt averaged 1.15 million viewers.

This marks the third time since 2015 that the Women’s College World Series has outdrawn the CWS in terms of TV viewership in the Championship Series.

In 2015, the Michigan/Florida WCWS championship matchup averaged 1.85 million viewers, more than 400,000 more than the CWS that same year. In 2016, Auburn and Oklahoma’s face-off bested the Coastal Carolina/Arizona MCWS series by the same margin.

Only once since then has baseball beaten softball in that metric when both series’ played the same number of games (2017; baseball averaged higher viewership in both 2018 and ’19 when the MCWS went to a winner-take-all game three and the WCWS champion was determined in two games).

Some direct numbers that show just how dominant the WCWS was over the MCWS in 2021:

Number of games that drew 1 million+ viewers:
WCWS 10
MCWS 6

Number of times each event drew 1.5 million+ viewers:
WCWS 5
MCWS 1

Baseball’s most-watched game of the CWS was Game 3 of the Mississippi State/Vanderbilt championship series, which draw 1.67 million viewers. That number was less than both Game 1 (1.86 million) and Game 2 (2.08 million) of the Oklahoma/Florida State championship series at the WCWS, and narrowly edged out Game 3 of OU/FSU which began at 3 pm Eastern time and drew an audience of 1.565 million.

WHAT IT MEANS

Now, the folks who are baseball fans have pointed out the fact that 2 of the 3 Championship Series games in the MCWS aired on ESPN2, and that the Men’s College World Series had a number of games that aired on ESPN2, as well as stiff competition from the NBA Playoffs and the Stanley Cup playoffs. But neither argument holds water, as softball goes up against the same events annually in a normal year. In fact, the Women’s College World Series typically goes up against the NBA Finals in primetime, which draw more viewers than the conference finals that the MCWS went up against. Softball continually pulls high ratings against those events, however, while baseball struggled.

In addition, the Women’s College World Series championship series has never had a game draw less than 1 million viewers within the last decade, despite the fact that the majority of those games aired on ESPN2. In fact, it was not until 2016 that the WCWS championship series aired only on ESPN.

The MCWS has benefitted in normal years from not having competition on the airwaves; we learned that this year if anything. Individuals in college baseball have been talking about pushing the season back and possibly hosting the MCWS in July to help generate revenue. It likely helps with TV viewers, as well. But the same could also be said if softball did similarly – maybe that is something to think about for both sports.

One thing that cannot be denied: Softball staunchly avoided something that many sports, including baseball, could not avoid: A decline in television viewership.

Softball suffered no such effects, and has firmly and officially established itself as a Top-4 college sport and a major TV draw.

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The Oklahoma/Florida State matchup in the Women’s College World Series Championship Series averaged 1.84 million viewers, marking the most-watched WCWS final since Michigan/Florida in 2015. The Sooners/Seminoles series was up 15% from the last time the event took place in 2019, when UCLA and Oklahoma averaged 1.57 million viewers, according to ESPNPR.

That number is especially impressive, considering that Game 3 of this year’s Championship Series aired in a mid-afternoon time slot; despite the early start, the game was UP 6% from the previous Game 3 (2016; Oklahoma vs. Auburn; 1.48 million) which aired in primetime.

The winner-take-all game between Alabama and Florida State on Monday night, as well as each game of the Championship Series, easily beat the Stanley Cup Playoffs in viewership each night, head to head.

In full, the 17-game Women’s College World Series this year averaged 1.20 million viewers, which makes it the most-watched WCWS ever, topping the previous record-holder from 2015. The 2021 event was up 10% in average viewership from the 2019 tournament, and ten of the seventeen games played this year took place in front of more than one million television watchers.

Referring to the all-time-high 1.84 million viewers that watched this year’s Championship Series, on average, here’s how that number compares to the viewership for other various championships:

Game 2 of the Championship Series between Oklahoma and Florida State averaged 2.08 million viewers on Wednesday night, marking the event’s largest Game 2 audience on record. The Sooners’ win, which peaked with 2.6 million watchers from 8:45-9 pm ET, is the most-watched WCWS game overall since 2015 (Michigan/Florida, 2.27 million). It is the 4th most-watched WCWS game of all-time:

Some Notes:

• Game 1 of the WCWS Championship Series final averaged 1.86 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience on record for Game 1 of the best-of-three championship series. The number was up 3% from the similar game in 2019.
• During the fourteen games leading up to the Championship Series, this year’s WCWS averaged 1.06 million viewers. That number was up 5% from 2019 and the highest-ever viewer average during the tournament’s preliminary games.
• The Monday night, winner-take-all semifinal game between Florida State and Alabama averaged 1.63 million viewers on ESPN, coming in as the second-highest watched pre-Finals game on record.
• Saturday’s Florida State/Oklahoma State elimination game, which began shortly before midnight and did not end until 2:18 AM, still brought in 532,000 viewers.
• Opening day of this year’s WCWS averaged 755,000 television viewers on ESPN, the event’s largest opening day audience since 2009. James Madison’s upset win over Oklahoma pulled in 620,000 viewers, which is the most-watched first game of the WCWS on record.
• Leading into the WCWS, the Super Regionals averaged 516,000 viewers; that’s the highest average for the Supers since 2012, according to ESPNPR. That includes a 901,000 viewership number for the Oklahoma/Washington game that aired on ABC, which came out as the second most-watched Super Regional game in a decade (trailing only 2019 Texas/Alabama Game 3).

A Few Thoughts:

Softball should be treated like a Top 5 college sport.

Too many college administrators and media personalities place softball in the same category as volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, tennis, etc. It’s not there. Other than the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, no other college championship tournament generates this kind of interest from the first game of the tournament to the last. Consider social media, as well, with the television ratings and more.

This year’s Women’s College World Series was the most-watched edition of the tournament since 2015. Viewership was up 10% from 2019. Ten of seventeen games averaged more than one million viewers.

College softball is a Top-4 sport in popularity. If you put the NCAA’s offerings into tiers, college football and men’s basketball would be on the top tier, but softball, women’s basketball, and college baseball should be all alone on Tier 2, and ahead of sports like volleyball and soccer.

The first softball game ever was played on ABC during the Super Regional round, and I expect more softball games to air on ABC in the future. The WCWS would possibly be the top choice to air on ABC, but keep in mind that, starting in 2022, ESPN and ABC will have rights to both the NBA and NHL playoffs, including championship Finals.

If the Women’s College World Series doesn’t appear on ABC in 2022, there could be a scenario where the WCWS is slotted on ABC in years when the network doesn’t air the Stanley Cup Final. Some of the WCWS could air on ABC by 2023.

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One game to monitor this weekend is Game 2 of the Washington and Oklahoma series, which is scheduled to air on ABC.

The game will air on Saturday at 3 pm Eastern time. It marks the first time in history that a college softball game will air on one of the major broadcast networks.

The Huskies-Sooners Super Regional also marks the return of Jessica Mendoza to the softball broadcast booth, as she reunites with Beth Mowins, Michele Smith, and Holly Rowe for the call in Norman.

Kevin Brown and Amanda Scarborough will be in Baton Rouge to call the Florida State/LSU Super Regional; Brown and Scarborough called the Austin Regional last week, including the late-night, winner-take-all Game 7 between Oregon and Texas.

Major news on the broadcast side includes former Arizona great Kenzie Fowler calling her first Super Regional. Fowler will be teamed with veteran play-by-play broadcaster Mark Neely as the pair calls the Virginia Tech/UCLA Super Regional in Los Angeles.

Remaining broadcast pairings for the Super Regional round include:

• Eric Frede and Madison Shipman, Tuscaloosa Super Regional
• Courtney Lyle and Kayla Braud, Gainesville Super Regional
• Tiffany Greene and Erin Miller, Stillwater Super Regional
• Pam Ward and Jenny Dalton-Hill, Fayetteville Super Regional
• Mike Couzens and Carol Bruggeman, Columbia Super Regional

Tournament ratings are in

Alabama’s win over Florida in the SEC Tournament championship game on May 15th was the most-watched softball game of the 2021 season, to-date.

The matchup was also the most-watched SEC Softball Tournament championship game since 2016.

The Crimson Tide’s 4-0 win over the Gators drew 563,000 viewers on ESPN, which is up from 2019’s edition of the SEC Softball Tournament championship game between the Gators and Tide which drew 549,000 viewers.

It is the 3rd-most-watched SEC Softball Tournament championship game since 2015, trailing the 2015 title game between Auburn and Tennessee (887,000) and 2016 matchup between Auburn and LSU (587,000). Keep in mind that the 2015 title game aired on primetime on ESPN.

Elsewhere, the ACC Softball Tournament championship game between Duke and Clemson on May 15th drew 457,000 viewers, which is slightly down from the 2019 ACC Softball Tournament championship game (between Florida State and North Carolina) that drew 480,000 viewers.

The Blue Devils’ 2-0 win over the Tigers was also the 3^rd-most-watched ACC title game since 2015, trailing only the 2019 edition and the 2016 title game which pitted Notre Dame against Florida State and drew a 486,000 number.

The Big 12 tournament championship game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State aired on ESPN2 for the first time and drew 369,000 viewers. The game was the fourth time that the two teams have met this season.

These numbers are a good sign that the NCAA Tournament will produce solid viewership numbers after a 1-year absence and avoid a downturn in viewership, as some other sports have suffered during the pandemic.

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For frequent updates on the Bracket impacts of various games, click here for Bubble Watch.

Bracketology 8.0: Regionals

* = Automatic Qualifier

Bracketology 8.1: Last In/First Out

Last One In: Northwestern

First One Out: Illinois State

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