Main League Baseball is lastly backing an expert ladies’s softball league, placing its backing and affect behind the Athletes Limitless Softball League, which can debut this summer time with 4 groups touring across the nation.
MLB introduced Thursday morning — which additionally occurred to be, by no coincidence, the beginning of the NCAA Ladies’s Faculty World Collection — that it was buying an fairness stake in AUSL. In keeping with ESPN, MLB’s stake in AUSL is greater than 20 %. MLB may even assist with advertising and content material distribution.
It’s the primary time MLB has ever invested in an expert softball league.
“Main League Baseball’s funding within the AUSL,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned in an announcement, “represents a chance to help softball’s long-term progress and broaden our engagement with these excellent athletes and their followers.”
The commissioner of AUSL is Kim Ng, a trailblazer for girls in baseball who beforehand served as the final supervisor of the Miami Marlins from 2020 to 2023, making her the primary lady to serve in that place in MLB.
“This settlement displays our confidence in Kim Ng’s management, the AUSL imaginative and prescient and the unbelievable expertise of its athletes,” Manfred mentioned. “Throughout this terribly thrilling time for girls’s sports activities, we would like softball to thrive.”
Right here’s every little thing you have to know in regards to the inaugural AUSL season…
When does the AUSL season begin?
Opening Day is on June 7 with video games in Rosemont, Illinois, and Wichita, Kansas.
The 4 groups — the Bandits, Talons, Blaze and Volts — will every play 24 video games by July 23. The 2 groups with the perfect information will then meet within the AUSL Championship, a three-game collection to be performed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from July 26-28.
The place will AUSL video games be performed?
The four-team league will make stops in 10 cities. Along with Rosemont, Wichita and Tuscaloosa, AUSL will play in Sulphur, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Norman, Oklahoma; Omaha, Nebraska; Seattle, Washington; Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah; and Spherical Rock, Texas, in the course of the common season.
After the championship, AUSL will then maintain an All-Star Cup with video games being performed in Holly Springs and Greenville, North Carolina, and Rosemont, Illinois, in August. The sport in Greenville will coincide with the Little League Softball World Collection.
How you can watch AUSL video games?
Choose AUSL video games might be broadcast on MLB Community and MLB.TV — the league’s direct-to-consumer streaming service. MLB Community will broadcast the season-opener in Wichita dwell at 7:30 p.m. ET.
A full broadcast schedule might be introduced at a later date, however AUSL already has a 33-game cope with ESPN. Athletes Limitless CEO and co-founder Jon Patricof advised ESPN that each one 72 AUSL video games will seem on linear TV.
Who’re the gamers in AUSL?
The AUSL held a draft in January with a pool of gamers who had already exhausted their school eligibility. Former Oklahoma State pitcher Lexi Kilfoyl was the primary general choose, going to the Bandits. Former UCLA pitcher Rachel Garcia, a two-time Nationwide Participant of the Yr, landed with the Volts.
A second draft was held earlier this month that includes present school gamers who gained’t have NCAA eligibility after this faculty season. Nationwide Participant of the Yr Bri Ellis, the Arkansas slugger, was picked by the Talons, whereas Duke infielder Ana Gold was chosen by the Blaze.
The oldest participant within the league is 33-year-old pitcher Keilani Ricketts Tumanuvao, who was a two-time Nationwide Participant of the Yr and helped Oklahoma win a World Collection in 2013. She simply accomplished her first season because the pitching coach on the College of the Pacific.
Full rosters might be discovered right here.
How a lot cash do AUSL gamers make?
In keeping with the league’s web site, the typical wage is $45,000, however gamers can earn as much as $75,000.
What’s subsequent for the AUSL?
In 2026, AUSL goals to broaden right into a city-based league as an alternative of a touring one.
