The BSF has announced that the National Softball League (NSL) will have 14 teams for the 2015 season, equalling the highest number of teams to play in the league since it began in 2009.
Three new teams – the Bristol Bees, Manchester Greensox and Leeds – have joined the A-grade league this year, while the Solent Mariners have dropped out for what they hope will be a one-year hiatus.
Meanwhile, the Dragons, one of the founder-members of the NSL, have changed their name to London New Zealand.
The 14 teams will be battling over the course of five tournaments this summer for the eight places available in the Premier Nationals, which will be played alongside other grades of Co-ed Slowpitch National Championships at Farnham Park on the weekend of 22-23 August.
The BSF will review the NSL at the end of the season, and decide whether to keep the league at 14 teams (or more), or revert to a 12-team format, which will mean relegation for teams at the bottom and the creation of a method for new teams to enter the league in future.
The teams
The 14 teams that will compete in the National Softball League in 2015 are:
Blue Steel
Bristol Bees
Chromies
LNZ (formerly Dragons)
Greensox
H2O
Knights
Leeds
Legends
Maniacs
Pioneers
Slammers
Thunder
Warriors
The events
The five tournaments that will host NSL competition this summer are:
May 9-10 -- Diamond Series 1
June 13-14 – Diamond Series 2
June 20-21 – British Airways Tournament
July 18-19 – BSUK/MLB Tournament
August 8-9 – Diamond Series 3
One of the BSF's aims for 2015 was to spread NSL tournaments more evenly across the summer, and except for the two consecutive weekends in June with the British Airways Tournament following Diamond Series 2, this aim has been achieved.
The NSL teams now need to enter the five events as soon as possible, as places in these tournaments are not automatically guaranteed to NSL teams.
Diamond Series organisers have told the BSF that because of the increased number of NSL teams, not all NSL games can be played on the dedicated fields this year, though playoff stage games almost certainly will be.
Full NSL results and tables during the season will be posted on www.bsf-nationals.org and on the BSF website.
Qualification requirements
The BSF has set out the following requirements and conditions for NSL play in 2015:
- All NSL teams must be affiliated to the BSF and must be registered and their players rostered on the BSF website.
- To qualify for a place in the Premier Nationals, a team must play in a minimum of three NSL events and finish in one of the top eight places in the league table at the end of the season. It will obviously be in teams' best interests to play as many NSL events as possible.
- To qualify to play for an NSL team in the Premier Nationals, a player must have played for that team on four full days in NSL events, and must play for that team exclusively on those days.
- Players may transfer from one NSL team to another, but after Diamond Series 2, rosters will be “locked” and no further transfers will be possible.
- The first two times that NSL teams play each other during round-robin play at NSL events will be counted as the league games between those teams for NSL standings. If teams have failed to play each other twice in round-robin play, then playoff results between those teams at NSL events will be counted for league standings as required.
- If NSL teams have not played each other twice in the course of round-robin or playoff competition at NSL events, then these unplayed games will be awarded as a 7-0 forfeit to the team that has played the most NSL events. If the teams have played the same number of NSL events, the unplayed games will be recorded as 0-0 draws.