Scrap Yard Dawgs will leave the league and continue operations as an independent entityTWITTER
The future of National Pro Fastpitch softball was “thrown into doubt this week by the departure of the league's reigning champion and the effective dissolution of its oldest franchise,” according to Graham Hays of ESPNW.com. Four months before the anticipated start of the league's 15th season, the Houston-area Scrap Yard Dawgs “announced the franchise would leave the league and continue operations as an independent entity.” The Dawgs won the '17 NPF championship last August. This week also “saw the end of the Akron Racers, the only franchise to participate in each of the NPF's first 14 seasons.” Racers Majority Owner Craig Stout will “continue with a franchise utilizing mostly Chinese players and financed in part by Chinese interests.” NPF Commissioner Cheri Kempf said that the new franchise “will not be called the Racers or use its logo.” The Texas Charge, a team that “initially shared ownership resources with Scrap Yard, also ceased operations last fall after three seasons" in the NPF. The turnover leaves the NPF with five teams, and just two that are “not committed to majority-foreign rosters” for '18. Already without major national corporate sponsors or a national TV contract, the NPF now “faces more obstacles in selling itself as the preeminent post-college softball experience” (ESPNW.com, 1/30).
