Athletes Unlimited (AU), a women’s sports network, is launching a new softball league.
Starting in 2025, the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) will introduce a four-team, 8-to 10-week season in a traditional format. This will complement the existing AU Pro Softball Championship Season, which follows a more unorthodox model.
The AUSL’s inaugural season in 2025 will be a touring league, with games in 6-to-8 different cities. The AUSL will transition to a city-based league in 2026.
Softball is one of four sports in AU’s athlete-led leagues, which run for 5-to-6 weeks. In utilizing a traditional league structure, AUSL promises new opportunities for both athletes and AU, especially as the sport prepares to return to the Olympics in 2028 amid increasing fan interest.
“AUSL is much needed in our sport, as the traditional model is popular amongst fans,” said Cat Osterman, the two-time Olympic medalist, four-time All-American and six-time professional All-Star in a statement. “But also gives athletes the opportunity to develop and progress within the consistent environment of a season.”
As the champion of the AU Pro Softball Championship’s inaugural season, Osterman will come on board as an advisor to the league with softball legends Jessica Mendoza and Natasha Watley.
The new league’s 60-game season will be broadcast on ESPN, carrying at least 18 games exclusively on its linear platforms, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. Additional broadcast partners will be announced later. AU events scored notable increases in viewership across ESPN platforms in 2023, including a 38% year-over-year increase for AU’s Pro Softball Championship on ESPNU.
“When we started with Athletes Unlimited in 2020, we identified softball as the biggest opportunity, the biggest unmet need,” said Jon Patricof, AU’s co-founder and CEO, in a phone call. “And in softball, we think there is a major gap between the demand from fans, broadcasters, advertisers and professional opportunities.”
AU’s Pro-Softball, the network’s first sport, launched in 2020 with a five-week season. AU added a two-and-a-half-week season called AU Pro Softball AUX two years later.
Among all the AU sports, basketball was the only one with an established league in the U.S. prior to the launch of an AU league. AU launched Athletes Unlimited Pro Volleyball, the [then] only professional women’s indoor volleyball league in the U.S., in 2021. The success of AU’s volleyball league and the sport’s growing popularity led to the creation of a new full-length professional volleyball league called Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF). Launched in January with seven teams, PVF completed its inaugural season in May, attracting nearly 400,000 fans and 3.9 million YouTube views. Seven of the top 10 PVF players had previously competed in AU.
For lacrosse, AU remains the only professional league for women in the U.S.
The new AU softball league will likely to take place between May and July. Further details about locations, competitors and schedule will be announced at a later date.
