To use a diamond sports cliché, baseball and softball are rounding third and heading for home when it comes to overall participation, sales and viewership. In fact, the category was the fastest-growing of the seven activity categories the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) tracks in 2025, with more than 90 million Americans hitting, fielding and running those bases.
More specifically, fast-pitch softball ranked among the top five growth stories last year, up 13 percent, while baseball participation climbed to 18.2 million participants, well above pre-pandemic levels.

SFIA also reports momentum in equipment sales, with baseball and softball again ranking among the fastest-growing established sporting goods categories in wholesale growth. Total baseball/softball wholesale jumped 7.9 percent in 2025 to $891.4 million, representing 65.7 percent growth since 2020, according to the 2026 SFIA Manufacturers’ Sales by Category Report.
“Baseball and softball continue to benefit from the broader momentum we’re seeing across sports and fitness participation in the United States,” says Jenny Karn, senior director at SFIA. “Americans are prioritizing activity at record levels and team sports remain a critical entry point for long-term engagement, especially among youth participants.”

Karn continues, “As the U.S. enters an unprecedented decade of hosting major global sporting events – including this year’s World Baseball Classic – there is significant opportunity to further grow participation and inspire the next generation of baseball and softball players. Turning that global attention into long-term participation growth is the key focus of SFIA’s 2034WARD Campaign.”

It’s great news for team dealers that both baseball and softball are strong at the youth level. The NFHS reported that Baseball claimed the number three spot on its list of Ten Most Popular Boys Programs for the 2024-25 school year, trailing only Basketball and Track and Field-Outdoor, respectively. Fast-Pitch Softball ranked fifth on the organization’s list of Ten Most Popular Girls’ Programs during that same time period.

Even more promising, the reach of the games is expanding. For example, the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) – a pro women’s softball competition in which Major League Baseball (MLB) has a strategic ownership stake of over 20 percent  – is experiencing massive viewership. Through the first two weeks of the 2026 season, average viewership across ESPN platforms skyrocketed 181 percent. Increased linear television visibility and enhanced digital engagement (tracking over 237 million social media impressions and steadily climbing merchandise sales), have driven the surge, according to AUSL.

On the men’s side, MLB national viewership is experiencing a resurgence, with exclusive broadcasts on ESPN, Fox, NBC and Netflix averaging roughly 2.28 million viewers. This marks a huge 44 percent increase over previous years, representing the league’s strongest regular-season TV ratings since 2017, reports Yahoo Sports.

At the college level, baseball viewership surged in 2026, with the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament averaging 695,000 viewers — an impressive 29 percent increase year-over-year. The Men’s College World Series (MCWS) alone averaged 1.5 million viewers across its 15 games, making it the third most-watched MCWS on record, according to ESPN.

In softball, the 2026 Women’s College World Series saw record-breaking TV ratings, averaging 1.5 million viewers per game before the championship series. The Texas vs. Texas Tech finals averaged 2.2 million viewers, with the title-clinching Game Three hitting 2.41 million, the largest audience in college softball history.

And not to be left out, youth baseball and softball viewership is also climbing, driven by massive digital streaming on apps such as GameChanger, which streams more than 4.2 million games annually. The explosion of youth viewership is closely tied to remote digital access rather than traditional TV, notes Sports Business Journal. Little League Softball and Little League Baseball events have also expanded their media footprints. The Little League Softball World Series championship game regularly airs on ABC and boasts audiences surpassing 1.4 million. The Little League Baseball tournament dominates annual late-summer cable and broadcast ratings on ESPN and ABC.

To use one more cliché, diamond sports are hitting it out of the park.

Touching Base With Dealers

From a team dealers’ perspective, baseball and softball remain solid, stable and dependable.

“Our hardgoods sales are strong and we sold more baseballs than ever this season,” says Bob Fawley, owner of Capitol Varsity Sports in Oxford, OH. “Online team stores are also a huge help because we can control customization to a degree.”

He notes that baseball is the biggest diamond sports category for his business due to travel ball, but softball is equally strong. “This year went smoothly and there were no supply chain issues. It was all pretty healthy with lots of teams and kids.”

Fawley is also happy to see a lot of investment in local facilities, which helps generate sales. “There are new facilities with well-maintained, multiple fields at the same place and they’re buying bases and equipment and hardgoods such as field tarps, windscreens and other logoed product.”

However, he is concerned about the fate of local community teams, which are struggling “because parents want to put their kids in upper leagues and travel teams. The numbers are there, but I worry about how we’re pushing kids at the 8- to 12-year-old level,” he says.

At Stateline Sports in Lebanon, NH, buyer Dan Proulx says, “Baseball and softball are selling well, both retail and team. Baseball is a little stronger, but softball is right there. We’re selling more, mostly to schools and local Little League organizations. Both sports are especially strong at the youth level.

“This year went well,” he adds. “We are up from last year, things grew, and are still going in a positive direction. The supply chain is okay and everything has recovered. We’ve been able to get most of what we need within a week.”

For Scott Treiber, owner of Medford, NJ-based Sports Paradise, “sales have been pretty flat for softball and baseball because lacrosse has taken a bite out of the business. Things are status quo — nothing blew out of the water and the business is okay.”
He elaborates, “Travel ball is huge right now — it’s our biggest category. The majority of our business is high school, but travel teams buy more. Uniforms are always the best for us – everything is sublimated now, which is better for us – and caps and equipment remain steady.”

And at Jack Pearl’s Sports Center in Battle Creek, MI, owner Keith Manning is also bullish on sublimated uniforms. “Business is good, we sell a lot of uniforms, mostly sublimated, and customers are happy with the fast turnaround — usually a week to 10 days.”

For Manning baseball is the larger category, but softball is growing. “Most teams are staying steady in terms of numbers. The only major change is the double first base [split first base] mandate. It’s more for safety issue since it creates one big first base which decreases the chances for injury. It’s a new NFHS rule that starts in the 2027 season and we expect to sell a lot.”

Budget Battles

While the rising activity and interest in diamond sports at all levels is a net positive, there are still some daunting challenges for dealers. The big influx of COVID-era money has been spent and now school and team budgets are shrinking, meaning dealers’ margins are getting tighter. Add to this the trend of many manufacturers selling direct-to-consumer online, along with offshore uniform sublimation factories looking to cut out the middleman, and it’s apparent that dealers have two srikes against them (sorry for that one more cliché).

“For us, the hardgoods and sublimation business on clothing is big for both baseball and softball, especially for youth groups,” says Fawley, of Capitol Varsity Sports. “But I still have concerns about prices, and that it’s a race to the bottom.

He explains that companies based in Pakistan are reaching out to leagues directly regarding sales of sublimated uniforms. “This is problematic for dealers and is becoming more prevalent. Lots of those factories don’t have the quality control or colors, so it’s a challenge.”

Fawley also observes, “Travel teams have taken over from a money standpoint — kids have two or three sets of uniforms, hats and other gear, whereas school teams don’t. At the school level, we’re on the brink of having budgets being really scrutinized. But schools might be looking to buy higher-quality product because uniforms have to last a couple of years or more.”

In Fawley’s view, the main challenge going forward is the economy. “We’ve been living a dream for a while. Some school districts in our area are facing huge deficits in a year or two  —when does the bubble burst? More people, especially at the school level, require price checking. When COVID money was available, people spent like drunken sailors. That’s dried up, so budgets are tighter now.”

Proulx, at Stateline sports, concurs. “Budgets are very tight and it’s not as easy as it used to be,” he says. “Uniform sales are up, but bats and helmets are down due to budget issues. The biggest challenge is organizations being able to afford the stuff that kids need.”

Likewise, Manning of Jack Pearl’s Sports Center comments, “Most schools we deal with are facing deficits and budget cuts and more schools are relying on boosters. We’ve done well and stayed steady with club and travel teams. We’ve been fortunate so far.”

And finally, at Sports Paradise, Treiber is seeing school budgets being cut across the board, with teams now relying more on boosters for funding. But ever the optimist, he remarks, “Budgets may start loosening up eventually.”

NEWS & STATS FROM THE DIAMOND SPORTS

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) a women’s pro league that boasts six teams and is now in its second season, struck a streaming deal with local New York City media despite having no team in the region. The YES Network and Gotham Sports App will air seven AUSL games this season. The league currently has strong media reach with ESPN, so this could serve as a way to gauge the city’s interest in fielding a team.

In related news, the Milwaukee Brewers and Ryan Sanders Baseball joined the AUSL investor group in early June, ahead of the league’s second season. The Brewers became the first MLB club to invest directly in the AUSL. Ryan Sanders Baseball already plays a significant role in the AUSL as the operating partner of the Texas Volts.

Sports authentication platform The Realist inked a deal with the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) to develop and launch the first officially licensed trading card program for an active pro women’s baseball league in the U.S. The partnership underscores a growing interest in women’s baseball and presents an opportunity for the sport to break into baseball’s trading card culture. For the WPBL, it’s a unique branding opportunity to differentiate itself from softball.

Baseball/Softball is one of the sporting goods industry’s fastest-growing categories, according to the 2026 SFIA Manufacturers’ Sales by Category Report. Total baseball/softball wholesale rose 7.9 percent in 2025 to $891.4 million, representing 65.7 percent growth since 2020. Bats (+7.9 percent), gloves/mitts (+11.7 percent) and protective gear (+7.2 percent) all showed strong gains. Additionally, wholesale sales for baseball uniforms jumped 5.3 percent.

Team sports posted the highest year-over-year growth of any category (+6.9%), surpassing 90 million participants for the first time since SFIA began tracking, according to the organization’s 2026 Topline Participation Report. Softball (Fast-Pitch) soared 13 percent from 2024 to 2025 (2.8 million players); Softball (Slow-Pitch) remained flat at +0.1 percent (6.7 million); and Baseball rose 5.5 percent (18.2 million).