Major League Baseball announced the equity investment in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League on Thursday in a deal that includes game distribution on MLB Network and MLB.TV.
Major League Baseball is making a significant equity investment in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, the companies announced Thursday, a wide-ranging partnership leading into the start of AUSL’s inaugural season as a team-based league on June 7. While MLB helped revive National Pro Fastpitch via a marketing partnership in 2002 — a league that ran from 2004-2021 — it hasn’t made an investment in another sports league quite like this, per a source close to the league. MLB will immediately become AUSL’s largest outside stakeholder.
The cash investment will help cover league operational costs and also come with game distribution of the four-team league on MLB Network and MLB.TV, joint sales, sponsorship, and marketing initiatives, and increased visibility of AUSL and its players across marketing, events, editorial, digital, and social platforms, and collaborations with teams in local markets.
“This is probably the largest single game-changer for the sport of softball, potentially in history,” Jon Patricof, Athletes Unlimited’s CEO, told Boardroom. “Getting MLB on board is a watershed moment for us. They’re incredibly aligned, motivated, and really putting the full weight of the MLB behind the AUSL.”
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Talks with MLB began in earnest about a year ago through its work with CAA Evolution, a sports media rights advisory practice that’s helped Athletes Unlimited source partnerships across its women’s basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse leagues. When AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng worked at the MLB league office in 2020 before taking over as the Miami Marlins general manager, becoming the first women to be the lead executive of a major North American men’s pro sports league, she played a pivotal role in planting the early seeds in starting a conversation on MLB’s role in promoting women’s softball in an impactful way.
Everyone in the softball world knows that there’s a need for a traditional professional women’s league, Patricof said last week over Zoom. That includes having the right management team and obtaining necessary buy-in from all stakeholders. The Talons, Bandits, Volts, and Blaze will play a 24-game schedule across 10 cities like Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Omaha, and Salt Lake City from June 7 to July 23 before the championship series in Tuscaloosa. ESPN will broadcast at least 18 of these games before the league expands to six teams in 2026 and becomes a city-based league.
Before AUSL makes its new debut, every Athletes Unlimited league across its different sports hasn’t featured set teams, but is based on a scoring system where players compete for an individual overall championship with teams and captains changing weekly. Following the AUSL season, 60 softball stars will compete in the AUSL All-Star Cup, a 21-game August schedule adhering to that format.
“MLB’s investment in the AUSL represents an opportunity to support softball’s long-term growth and expand our engagement with these outstanding athletes and their fans,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a release. “As a part of our broader commitment to growing softball and creating more opportunities for women and girls in sports, this agreement reflects our confidence in Kim Ng’s leadership, the AUSL vision, and the incredible talent of its athletes. During this extraordinarily exciting time for women’s sports, we want softball to thrive. MLB is committed to help build a sustainable and impactful league that drives fandom, serves the softball community, and benefits all female athletes.”
Patricof said he’s trying to strike a balance between being ambitious and methodical in growing the league, despite this massive MLB investment for an amount Athletes Unlimited declined to disclose. The new resources coming in, he continued, will go a long way toward executing the plan the league already laid out to create and sustain a team-based softball league that would be an important step forward in the evolution of women’s sports.
“The MLB relationship is a huge game-changer,” Patricof said, “but it’s part of the overall evidence that we have the elements here that are important for success. This is a big moment that builds on the momentum that we’ve already started to build and put together.”
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