RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
Contrary to the softball rumor mill going full blast in late July, Dan Hay, the President and CEO of Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) has not been sitting on a mound of $12 million counting his dollars like Scrooge McDuck.
Nor has he been soaking up the sun on a Tahiti island drinking pina coladas after supposedly being “bought out” by Perfect Game last month.
“I wish,” Hay laughs. “I wouldn’t be here talking to you had I been that lucky!”
As he did a dozen years ago when Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) began, Hay is rolling up his sleeves (figuratively if not literally) and aggressively jumping in with both feet to oversee a new venture called Perfect Game Softball, or as it’ll be more commonly known as, PG Softball.
To set the record straight, here is what the partnership between the two companies is… and isn’t:
- PGF owns no part of Perfect Game Baseball and vice versa: Perfect Game owns no part of PGF
- PGF is totally owned by the same people who have had ownership since 2010, the year it began.
- Perfect Game Baseball is also totally owned by the same people who owned it prior to the public press release issued on July 27, 2020.
- PG Softball owns no part of PGF or Perfect Game.
- Most importantly, PG Softball is a completely separate and new entity owned by Perfect Game Baseball and PGF, each with 50% ownership.
WHAT IS PERFECT GAME?
What exactly is Perfect Game, for those not as entrenched in the baseball side as they are in softball?
One MLB scout put it in layman’s terms: “Perfect Game does a nice job in its space with the high school players and they offer a lot of different things including tournaments, showcases, leagues, and player-focused scouting. They have a diversified brand and have shown they can execute events at a high level.”
The scout, based on the West Coast, adds: “They’ve found a niche in amateur baseball and have been around a long time and, for us in Major League Baseball, they provide a great vehicle to see players on a national scale. Perfect Game actually provides a nice blend of college recruiting and pro scouting opportunities.”
Founded in 1995 by Jerry Ford, who wanted to get baseball players exposure in Iowa, Perfect Game has become the dominant force in amateur baseball scouting across the country.
As PGF explained in its press release: “PG Softball was created to bring the industry leading, scouting, ranking, metrics and streaming capabilities to softball which have long been enjoyed by baseball athletes and recruiters.”
Since launching a quarter century ago, Perfect Game Baseball has produced astounding numbers: through their series of events nearly 13,000 amateur players have been drafted, 250,000-plus have committed to colleges and more than 1,400 have played in the Major Leagues.
And in the last year alone, Perfect Game has produced 1,400 events involving over 30,000 teams featuring nearly a half million players.
Similar to the softball world, Perfect Game’s success has been built on local and national showcases where coaches can see and evaluate talent, but also on the player side where athletes themselves can have player profiles filled with photos, videos, verified event marks, stats, scouting reports and more.
One Power 5 Conference softball coach says, “We have been hoping that some day Perfect Game would enter our softball space. There is no better partner than PGF to introduce PG Softball to the softball world. College coaches are very excited about the new opportunities PG Softball will now provide us during the recruiting process.”
WALL-TO-WALL SOFTBALL COVERAGE
The coverage and promotion of the athlete through PG’s media arm is as thorough as the event production.
Daron Sutton, the Vice President and Executive Producer of Content and PerfectGame.TV, oversees Perfect Game’s media efforts which includes three weekly shows on SiriusXM, ESPN (college) and ESPNU (college softball). In March, a 24-hour-per-day streaming service was launched featuring amateur baseball content and soon it will include amateur softball.
Sutton, the son of former MLB pitching great Don Sutton, not only knows his baseball, his face and voice are probably familiar to those in softball who have watched him and color analyst Amanda Freed-Katchaka, the former Olympian and UCLA great, broadcast the PGF Nationals TV games shown on the ESPN networks each summer for the last several years.
Click on the photo below to watch Daron and Amanda at the start of the 2019 PGF All-American Game:
Daron Sutton was the conduit between PGF and Perfect Game as he started full-time at PG on the media side after doing contract work in broadcasting—he’s the former voice of the Arizona Diamondbacks—while simultaneously becoming the voice of the PGF Nationals.
“I had done some SEC stuff in the 90’s,” he explains, “and it was invigorating, the energy of the youth. Year after year as I kept doing PGF Nationals, I saw it grow from one week (of championships) to two and be launched on TV and digital streaming platforms.”
Sutton explains that in 2016 he started full-time in his role at Perfect Game and “got to understand their vision and direction.” As he saw what PGF and PG had going separately, he invited Dan Hay down to San Diego for the 2016 Perfect Game All-Star Game, where he was also an announcer, and introduced Hay to various Perfect Game leaders including founder Jerry Ford.
“We sat at the Fanfest and just talked and that was the start of it,” he remembers. “We stayed in touch and there was ongoing communication with Dan and Perfect Game as there was a level of intrigue in how Dan did PGF and did it so well.”
Sutton jokes about his matchmaker role.
“Yes, I was the original Match.com for these two sides,” he laughs before growing serious. “Perfect Game had been growing in baseball and on the youth side and we’ve wanted softball to be part of that growth. My opinion was they (PG) could do it themselves or partner with someone who is talented and could do it well. That’s what PGF brought and I knew that when it ramped up back then they’d be partnering with the ‘Best in Show.’”
THE FOUNDERS MEET
PG founder Jerry Ford remembers not just how he and Hay struck up a relationship going back nearly five years ago, but also why.
“People had been after us forever to do for softball players what we do for baseball,” he recalls, “but most of our people were baseball people and don’t have the knowledge and passion for softball. We started the conversation with Dan, who came to that All-American Game in San Diego, and we decided, both sides, that we should partner. Both he and I felt it would make both our organizations stronger. We’re pretty excited about it.”
Ford explains that he is confident that what has worked in baseball will also be successful in the softball market.
“We’re taking it to another level for evaluating players,” the Iowa native explains. “We have a grading system implemented from a lot of events across the country tied altogether. We will do the same thing for softball players that we’ve been doing for baseball: putting the players front and center and finding talent wherever they may be.”
The PG founder feels like a huge benefit of his system being tied into softball is it will be able to find sleepers who otherwise may not have been discovered.
“Because softball is so dominated by pitching,” Ford begins, “that it’s possible in many states, like where we’re from in Iowa, that the best shortstop may be going from, say, the city of Strawberry Point in Iowa, and if they don’t have pitching, they might lose all the time, not get very far in a tournament or showcase or may not have the opportunity to be seen.”
“In baseball, on the other hand, that shortstop could be found by us and we can find that player and promote them. In softball, that player may not get that chance and if not connected to a top travel team then she might not get seen unless she goes to a college camp.”
THE ORIGIN OF PERFECT GAME… AND WHY IT’S WORKED NATIONALLY
Jerry Ford reflects back on the beginnings of his baseball company which started for one simple reason
“We started the baseball business because the talented kids in Iowa were at a disadvantage,” he recalls, “so we wanted to help them. In Iowa, for baseball and softball, high school competition is in the summer and it put the kids one year behind in baseball, especially in the draft.”
“Their senior season was almost worthless,” he continues. “The recruiting was done and the colleges were done. What we did was take top players in Iowa and start spring and fall seasons with showcase events. Iowa was the hardest state in the country to scout and we turned it into the easiest, because we had all the top players in one location so coaches could scout and see them all at one time.”
Before Perfect Game, it was rare that an Iowa baseball player would get recruited, even more unlikely that he would leave the state and play at a collegiate powerhouse or very improbably that one would get highly drafted.
“Once we started doing this,” the PG founder explains, “we started seeing kids get recruited by Stanford, USC, LSU, Florida, Vanderbilt, TCU… all the top programs in the country. And we started seeing kids getting drafted in the first couple of rounds.”
It wasn’t long before Perfect Game was able to replicate its model across the country, from events in San Antonio, Texas to ones in Fort Meyers, Florida and eventually to Arizona and California.
“We found that the same things we did in Iowa worked everywhere else and we eventually became the No. 1 recruiting service in baseball, although we don’t claim to be a recruiting service.”
Regarding the new partnership, Ford says: “We want to follow that same path we were on in baseball with softball. We’re an event-based business and, unlike many other places, we have full-time employees all over the country. Our goal is to get these softball players fresh out of college or those skilled in the sport involved in working with PG Softball.”
NATIONAL NETWORK
PG Softball will utilize some of the existing PGF events as well as overlay on facilities and locations that Perfect Game has coast to coast.
Ford believes what his company brings to the table is a network of people in every part of the country, from the Northeast to the West Coast.
“We have key people in all of those areas,” he explains. “What we need is to find those people, mostly women, at the high levels who want to stay involved in the game to fill scouting, operations, event, and other positions.”
“The number will be based on growth, but in baseball we have close to 150 full-time and thousands of part-time and seasonal people. When softball justifies hiring personnel, we’ll just continue to grow although we’ll start with probably 20-30 people full-time. We’ll expect we’ll have hundreds of people part-time too.”
The opportunities for former players and coaches to give back to the sport via PG Softball could be unlike no other company ever offered before.
“We’ve been working behind the scenes talking to players and coaches, just gathering information,” Ford reveals. “We’ve found out that there are so many softball players who want to stay involved once done with college, but there’s no jobs and not much for them out there. Some will try to attach to coaching while others go about their lives without softball so we think there’s a lot to offer for those who have a real passion for the game. Our philosophy has been that success is based on how much someone cares. Under the proven leadership of Dan Hay we will definitely find the right people and it will be great for the sport.”
Another exciting avenue in softball via the partnership will be PerfectGameTV, which for softball is in the beta testing but already has turned out to be popular. Ford and Sutton explain they’ll be streaming the showcases so college coaches can tune in wherever they’re at.
“We streamed our entire baseball showcase because everyone was isolated,” Ford says. “At our Junior National event, it was unbelievable, all the top colleges in the country were viewing that one—it was a big hit and we’re going to do the same thing in softball.”
Click on the image below to watch the video “We are PG” featured on PerfectGameTV:
The new venture, Ford concedes, will have some challenges, but the Perfect Game leader is confident it will succeed in softball as it has in its fellow stick-and-ball sport especially with the PGF partnership.
“Our job is to separate the differences while providing the same opportunities we do in baseball,” he continues. “We want softball to be front and center and equal to what we do in baseball. The most important thing in the world to us is we do this thing right. It just has to be done right.”
DAN HAY’S NEW ROLE
PG Softball is expected to hit the ground running at the start of 2021, although some dress rehearsals and early testing may become in the fall. The PG Softball leaders say they don’t plan on the new company becoming full-scale till January but the expectation is do events out of the gate across the nation in softball hotbeds “and even where not,” Ford admits. “The top players are well-known; our goal is to find top players who aren’t well known and, believe me, there’s a lot of them out there.”
Dan Hay will be in charge of Perfect Game Softball; his title will be President/CEO of PG Softball and he reveals that “a lot of my daily Premier Girls Fastpitch responsibilities will be turned over to Senior Vice President, Brittnay Hay-Zanini (his daughter and former DI player) and Senior Vice President, Garrett Hay (his son) who have both worked several years at PGF’s headquarters in Huntington Beach, California overseeing wide-ranging areas such as event operations, finance, marketing, online production and marketing.
“I will still oversee PGF operations,” adds Hay, “and will have weekly reports on what’s transpiring at PGF. We are in good hands with our many longtime experienced people who either have ownership or have been employed at PGF for many years including championship-winning coaches like Gary Haning, Bill Conroy, Bret Denio, Bill Sparrey and Bruce Richardson to name a few. There should be no interruption in our quality events and service at PGF while I spend most of my time building the PG Softball staffing infrastructure and event schedule.”
Managing as many as 300 events across the country, Hay and PGF will still continue to lead what is widely considered as the top event in travel softball, the PGF National Championships which—as to show it’s not going anywhere—announced recently its two weeks of dates for 2021:
The PGF Nationals and the PGF All-American Game were cancelled this summer due to strict California COVID-19 restrictions issued by the state government.
Ironically, other Nationals and major tournaments elsewhere across the country were played in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Tennessee. It was, admittedly, a tough year for Hay and PGF but they may look back in coming years at this summer as a defining one if PG Softball accomplishes what many think it will.
“I’m ecstatic about this new partnership with Perfect Game,” Hay says at his office in Huntington Beach on an unusually quiet Friday afternoon. “I really believe in my heart that 12 years ago, when PGF was formed, it was truly formed to better the sport and I sincerely believe that PGF has changed the sport for the better for athletes, parents, families and coaches.”
“This partnership with Perfect Game will be another game changer in our sport,” he predicts. “Their technology and ranking systems and their national presence in baseball allows us to bring this expertise to softball. It is important for me to bring Jerry Ford’s vision in baseball to the softball world. He has helped many athletes and their families over his many years and PG Softball will finally be able to bring all of our sports verified and unverified measurements under one platform.
Several times in the conversation, Hay uses the word “individualize,” as in “PG Softball will individualize the sport, meaning that families will be more in charge of their daughters’ destinies and not be as dependent on a coach or a team.”
PGF events will continue to operate high-level events including the PGF Nationals and the PGF All-American Game… here is a video highlighting some of the exciting moments offered by PGF in past years:
Although many specifics are still being finalized, the PGF leader says that the goal for the new company is to have, within the next 18 months, “the vast majority of softball players at all levels tested into the PG Softball Network.”
“I am also very excited about the expanded job opportunities that PGF & PG Softball will be able to provide to many of our former and current female athletes,” Hay adds.
“We will have showcased player combines running in conjunction with existing tournaments,” he says, “but many of these events will run independently and not be tied to anything.”
As to how many, Hay states: “I could envision doing 75 to 100 events in 2021, but, honestly, we will conduct as many events as humanly possible.”
ASPIRATIONAL MODEL
From large scale events to online player profiles, the scope and synergies of the partnership between the two sport juggernauts should make the sum of the experience even greater than the individual parts.
“One thing that PG does very well,” Sutton adds, “is provide the aspirational model, like a showcase or tournament or whatever level of event, where you as the athlete can control your page online and have results posted on it from an event where you’re professionally scouted.”
PG Softball is already able to create player profiles for athletes; click on the photo below to go to the registration page:
Building on Perfect Game’s two decades-plus of scouting tens of thousands of college-eligible players, along with those who could advance to the major leagues, the new venture has a strong background to draw upon and an attractively short learning curve to implement into the softball space.
“Perfect Game is an awesome event provider and its media has also set the bar,” says the Media VP. “The success of the marketing and the history connecting players to colleges and scouts, that’s what Perfect Game does best. It’s exciting that its long credibility of recognizing talent will now be applied to softball.”
“The two run great events,” Sutton concludes, “and their events will get stronger because of the scouting, the player pages and the recognition of the softball athlete. I’m thrilled for both sides because it takes unique dreamers to come up with a vision like this and Dan and Jerry are those kinds of guys.”
“The best part is the athletes will be the winners here, thanks to the memories and successes that they will receive out of PGF and PG Softball.”
— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball