Softball New   Zealand has no fears about being swallowed up  by baseball when the two sporting bodies combine at international level.

The sports have combined to form the World Baseball-Softball  Confederation to try and gain inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.

The merger is no threat to New Zealand Softball says General  Manager Dane Dougan.

“It’s purely for an Olympic bid so if the baseball-softball  combination doesn’t get into the Olympics, my understanding is this will all be  reconsidered in terms of the merger,” says Dougan. “Basically the merger is  purely for an Olympic bid at this time.”

Dougan is also confident softball will remain New Zealand’s  preferred discipline.

“We’ve got to put things into perspective a little bit,” says Dougan, “We’ve got 30,000 players playing softball in this country with  two-thirds of them male, so we actually have a fairly attractive product.”

The merger won't have any affect on the Softball World  Champs being held in New   Zealand in March next year.

RadioLIVE/3 News