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Women's Pro Softball in Madison · Ask The Experts

• 0:05
  Eight fifty three, Wiba and Madison in the morning, hanging out this morning
• 0:11
  with the general manager who is now wearing you've got like a divided hat.
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  Now it's got to do, I do, Samantha Room and general manager with
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  the Mallards and the yet to be named am I right on then, Yeah,
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  yes, we're going to dig in on that Fast Pitch Softball Northwoods League
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  Softball, Summer Collegiate League. Get all the details from Samantha in just a
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  moment. It's interesting because it feels very summer like in the studio. It's
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  very nice in here. It is it is, and you're obviously very much
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  ready. Let's talk before we get to the big announcement for fast pitch softball,
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  Let's talk overall. What's been going on at Warner Park. What's been
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  going on with the Mallards. You guys, it's never slow with the organization,
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  isn't no never, But that's how we like it, you guys.
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  When it comes to like planning for like the big you know, obviously baseball
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  is the is the focus, but Mallard's Baseball is also so much more.
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  It's obviously a big community event. Yeah, there's always fun promotions how far
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  in advance do you guys start planning for that kind of stuff? Pretty much
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  like the day after the season ends. Okay, so right when the season
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  ends, we do meetings internally with all of our staff to kind of like
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  recap the year, say like what went well, what can we do better,
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  what didn't go well, that sort of thing, And pretty much right
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  after those meetings we hit the ground running. So it's pretty nice. There's
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  there is downtime like that's that we close the office on Fridays like that sort
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  of thing in the fall, but we're always doing something and starting to plan
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  the fantastic. Of course, you can learn more online Madison Mallard's the website
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  there, Facebook and social media. And as general manager not only of the
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  Mallards, you are also now a general manager of Madison Softball or I guess
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  a name a team to be named later. You guys made a big announcement
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  last week and I'm watching it on online. I'm like, how exciting is
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  that? Yeah, let's talk about fast pitch softball. It's awesome. It's
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  something that we've been working on for the past few months, so not as
• 2:07
  long as people have been thinking, but it's a great addition to Warner Park.
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  We're excited to bring it in. We think that it's a groundbreaking league,
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  which is kind of the cool part too. It's the inaugural year of
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  the league, and the cool thing is that we're offering women the place to
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  play just comparable or equal to what the mallards get or what men get as
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  well. Is that is when we talk about opportunities, I think a lot
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  of times we think of like collegiate for women get a chance to play at
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  the college level, and it's just kind of that's it. This kind of
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  gives folks and women another opportunity to play on that high level. Does yeah,
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  yeah, absolutely, And with a softball coming back into the Olympics in
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  twenty twenty eight, like there's definitely more growth. I mean this is I
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  personally and we as an organization think that Madison is like the hub for women's
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  sports between you don't be a volleyball and it'll be hockey and potential women's soccer
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  team coming in. Like this is such a great spot for women's sports,
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  and so to be able to be on the forefront of that with this softball
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  team is really awesome. It's the goal to create a similar type atmosphere is
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  what you guys do with mail. Absolutely, That's what makes this league different
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  is there are summer collegiate leagues down in Florida, but they don't do like
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  promotions or tickets or all the things that celebrity appearances and bobbleheads like, they
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  don't do any of that. And so we're excited to be able to provide
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  that. And so crowds and fans and as we all know, Mallard's games
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  are always busy and always filled with people, and so we want to be
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  able to provide that same atmosphere for women. As far as other teams in
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  the league, do you know off the top of your head who some of
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  the other teams are going to be, what communities are doing this as well?
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  Yeah, so there's four inaugural teams this year. So it'll be us,
• 3:54
  it'll be Lacrosse man Cato, Minnesota, and then mine not North Dakota.
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  Oh, it's going to be quite a rivalry developing with some of those
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  teams. Yes mentioned the team does not have an official name yet. Correct.
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  Let's talk about opportunities for folks if they want to be part of Madison
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  history. Yeah, so we're calling it the Name your Team contest because we
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  want to make sure that people in the community can relate to it. It's
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  not that's something that we're super passionate about. It is like, it's not
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  our team, it's the community's team, it's Madison's team, and so On
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  our website it's madisonsoftball dot com. Currently it's temporary, but there's a link
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  where you can fill out suggestions ideas, and we're looking to kind of just
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  hear from people with just their thoughts. In general, we think it's cool.
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  We're obviously doing it, and the feedback we've gotten since our announcement on
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  Thursday has been far and above what we thought we were going to get,
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  which is always amazing, and so we just think overall it's such a great
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  thing to be bringing into Madison. What's also really cool is you mentioned,
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  of course, the kind of community we have here is we have some and
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  I don't want to toot our own horn, but I will amazingly creative people,
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  which for me the exciting thing. Obviously I'm excited about softball, but
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  I'm also with this promotion, just excited to see when you put it out
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  there, what the people come back with have you got a chance to preview
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  some of the suggestions? Are there ones out there yet? Oh? Yeah,
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  it's fun. It's really fun to be able to read through them because
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  internally we've been talking and we really want to make sure that this name embodies
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  Madison. That's a really big thing for goal for us with this, and
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  so when we're looking, we've been talking, We've been throwing random names out
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  for months, right, and no one has said anything where we're like this
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  is it? Like yes, like this is awesome. And so we've been
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  able to read through some of the people's ideas and some of them are starting
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  to like get logo wheels turning and that sort of thing. So overall,
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  I think it's exciting to be able to start from the ground. It's awesome
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  to hear. It's so exciting, and we of course talk from the fan
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  and the player's perspective. What about And I know so obviously sponsorships on other
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  thing make the world go round? What a great opportunity for and I know
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  we've got a lot of business leaders and owners that listen to this station.
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  I've got a guess there's an opportunity for those who want to be supporters on
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  other levels. Maybe you've got a business, A nice little billboard in the
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  outfield looks pretty nice. Those opportunities will be there, absolutely, And that's
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  the cool part about this being softball is we're able to target different organizations that
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  might not have been not interested in the mallards, but business wise it just
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  didn't make sense. And now we're seeing a whole slew of organizations come forward
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  and say, you know, the Mallards business wise, did it make sense?
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  However, this is a women's sports thing, and we want our name
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  attached to the women's sports and the quality and that sort of thing. And
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  that's a huge thing. That's exciting. We're excited to kind of break down
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  those walls. Can't wait to learn more about it. Samantha, thank you
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  so much for joining us. What's the website again, It's Madisonsoftball dot com
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  for now check them out on madisonsoftball dot com. General Manager, Samantha Rubin,
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  Samantha, thank you so much for your time this morning. Yeah.
• 6:59
  Thanks. Having Dan o'donald has a chance for you to win one thousand dollars
• 7:02
  next right here, I'm thirteen ten Wiba