MLB-AUSL partnership offers 'north star' for softball players with pro dreams

NEW YORK -- On the racks of the MLB flagship store Thursday morning were the usual suspects, like Aaron Judge and Fernando Tatis Jr. jerseys, but next to them hung jerseys of the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts. Those four teams are the founding franchises of the inaugural Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL), and thanks to MLB’s help, the women who sport those jerseys will soon be getting a bigger platform than they’ve ever had.

On Thursday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng announced Major League Baseball’s financial and strategic investment in the AUSL. This is MLB’s first major partnership with a women’s sports league, and their goal is to provide financial, promotional and broadcast support to the AUSL, which has its Opening Day on June 7.

Before joining the AUSL as a senior advisor and then as Commissioner, Ng worked together with Manfred for a decade in the Commissioner’s Office. One of her main responsibilities was running MLB’s softball initiatives.

“I've known Kim since we both started in the game,” Manfred said in an appearance on CBS Mornings on Thursday. “We worked together for 10 years in the Commissioner's Office. Kim showed great leadership skills while she was with us, great managerial skills, and I had no doubt that she had the skill set to be successful.”

Women’s sports have erupted in popularity in recent years; Ng spoke to the rise of the WNBA and the NWSL as part of the blueprint for AUSL’s path forward. But until now, women’s softball players haven’t had an entrenched pro league with a long-term future to pursue.

“It's not just about local softball being played at your college, a kid from Georgia looking up to the University of Georgia players,” Ng said. “These women will now have the opportunity to play year after year for 10, 15 years past college, just like the guys, right? And so I think that is really important as we think about building and growing the sport.”

The festivities continued from the studio into the MLB store, where Manfred and Ng promoted the partnership alongside four prominent AUSL figures: MLB softball ambassadors and AUSL advisors Jennie Finch and Natasha Watley, and AUSL players Sis Bates (Volts) and Sharlize Palacios (Talons).

In between media obligations, Bates and Palacios took photos with shoppers in front of an AUSL backdrop and expressed their excitement at the whole affair. But they didn’t have too much time on Thursday to dwell on the fanfare, as they’re in the middle of preparing for the AUSL season. Practice started on Wednesday, so the events in NYC were merely a short break en route to their larger goal: playing professional softball in front of crowds all over the country.

Bates, who played college softball at the University of Washington, expressed her excitement at traveling to Seattle and playing at the UW softball stadium as part of her AUSL schedule. She, Palacios and their teammates only have 10 days to get ready for the season, but they’re embracing the camaraderie that these precious team workouts provide.

“We've been training independently for nine months, so to be able to be with your team right now is the most amazing thing,” Bates said. “And we have coaches. We've before been totally player-led [in earlier AU softball iterations]. So having coaches and getting coached again is really exciting. I've been craving it for a long time, so we're really excited about that for our traditional league as well.”

MLB has invested heavily in youth softball with initiatives like the Breakthrough Series and the Elite Development Invitational, and Ng praised the popularity of women’s college softball, noting that the Women’s College World Series often outdraws the men’s equivalent. But one thing that all involved with AUSL emphasized on Thursday was the importance of this partnership bridging the gap between college softball and a pro career.

In the past, even the best women softball players didn’t have a reliably sustainable league to enter after their college days were over. Their time in college was regarded as the likely peak of their softball careers, with very little chance for a professional path. Now, with the AUSL, there will be an annual college draft and a stable platform for a pipeline of talent.

“It's a proven system of what happens when you invest in women and when you invest in anything, and so I hope that translates over to this pro league of creating a sustainable model,” said Watley, who played with Finch on the 2004 and 2008 Olympic medal-winning U.S. softball teams. “This is a north star for a young athlete to dream about, ‘I want to play for AUSL.’”

Finch has seen MLB’s impact with youth softball firsthand, hosting clinics at MLB development camps and having the Jennie Finch Empowerment Award and the Jennie Finch Classic named in her honor to boost youth softball players. She translated her softball talents into an illustrious pro career, but she was the exception, not the rule. With MLB’s investment in the AUSL, more Jennie Finches could be on the way.

“I was one of the very few fortunate ones that was able to play and have a place to play for a long, long time,” Finch said. “Now there's going to be numerous girls and women that will have this opportunity. And so to be able to see this happening, and to be here to witness it, it's such a gift and a dream.”

A few years ago while at MLB, Ng was cold-messaging college coaches trying to get the ball rolling for a partnership. Now, she’s dreaming far beyond that first step. The new league starts out with four teams and a barnstorming schedule, and Ng hopes it can expand to six teams next year all based in different cities.

Even in the AUSL’s inaugural form, the prospect of women’s softball on MLB Network and MLB’s social platforms is generating buzz around the sports world.

“I have been actually quite stunned in terms of all of the offerings and the 100% leaning into the amplification of the softball landscape,” Ng said. “It's really just been, as far as I can tell, a tremendous outpouring of positivity and exuberance.”