There is a huge disparity between the number of opportunities men and women athletes are presented after they are done playing collegiate sports. The simplest way to close the opportunity gap is for brands like us to offer more opportunities.

We are now able to offer an unparalleled program called The Next Season. The Next Season is an innovative ambassador program that includes a signature shoe deal, a signature apparel deal, and access to brand or career training that will help athletes get further, faster in their next business endeavors.

There is still time to vote for your favorite player to be a part of this program. Tell us her story.

Click here to vote.

The signature apparel portion of the program is an extension of the softball apparel RIP-IT sells in all the major sporting goods stores including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Big 5 Sporting Goods, and countless others. The signature apparel line will be built upon the foundation established by RIP-IT’s industry leading 4-Way Stretch Softball Pants and Period-Protection Softball Sliding Shorts. Both products are not only comfortable and durable, but they solve needs that our community had with existing products on the market. By utilizing our co-creation process, we are able to discover and solve the problems that our community is experiencing with products in the marketplace.

We have now set our sights on solving the problems our softball players face in the apparel players wear in softball training.

Here is one of the pieces of The Next Season Collection.

Quit wearing yoga pants to train

A recent survey of our softball community found that nearly 75% of elite players love to wear leggings while training. One of the more interesting notes from the survey was that the elite level athletes surveyed enjoyed wearing leggings designed for yoga. When asked what frustrations they had with their current yoga-designed leggings, these were their responses:

• My pants don’t stay up when I'm training
• Fabric is too thin and you see my butt
• My thighs rub together and the fabric rips
• Not enough stretch - restricted movement
• Seams rip
• Leggings that don’t fit my legs and butt

Surveys like this are disappointing. How do we still have a legging problem in 2021? There are so many brands making leggings, but none of them have solved the frustrations mentioned by our softball community.

We believe that we can help solve these problems for elite athletes. Our goal with leggings is to design them for the rigors of softball training and all that entails. Our leggings need to be durable enough to hold up to sliding practice.  Our leggings need to be constructed to endure leg day.  Our leggings need to fit the body type of the players in our community. Our leggings designs will recognize that sliding, diving, taking a knee, and squatting are more common activities that these leggings will endure. These leggings will be for athletes who spend more time diving for balls than practicing yoga poses.

Our leggings will be more durable and more comfortable than any on the market.

Learning opportunity for athletes, communities, and brands

Signature apparel lines are a big business and offer great partnerships. The investment in marketing, design, development, and time that brands put into the process are significant. Players, brands, and the communities that support them, have benefited greatly from these investments. Our goal is to provide even more benefit for softball athletes and the softball community.

As part of The Next Season, brand ambassadors will take part in the design and marketing of their signature apparel. And the community will take part, too! We’ll continue to ask you to vote so that your voices are heard. We’ll be taking you behind the scenes so the next generation of softball players can see some of the moving parts. What is it like to sit down with a designer? How does the development process work? What are the logistics involved in a large photo shoot? How can we position the next generation of players to prepare themselves for their opportunity?

There is still time to vote for your favorite player and tell us her story.

Click here to vote.

Voting ends May 31.

#thisisourtime