ATLANTA -- Six weeks ago, Major League Baseball announced its first-of-a-kind partnership with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, investing in the women’s professional sports league.
To say it's been a six-week whirlwind for those involved with the AUSL and the partnership would be an understatement. They’ve seen significant growth in fan and player engagement during the AUSL barnstorming season, including 14 sellouts, and they believe it's only the beginning of what’s to come.
Playoffs are on the horizon, the All-Star Cup will be held in August, and visibility for the sport and its players is at an all-time high.
“To have this platform that is elevated, amplified, and just so much a part of the conversation right now is just incredible,” AUSL commissioner Kim Ng said.
As part of All-Star Week, MLB came together with the AUSL and Women Raise the Game to hold a luncheon on Monday in Atlanta, celebrating the MLB-AUSL partnership and honoring five women who are changing the game:
Trailblazer of the Year -- Kim Ng
Innovator of the Year -- DeRetta Rhodes, PhD, EVP and Chief Culture Officer
Advocate of the Year -- Natasha Watley, two-time Olympian, MLB Softball Ambassador and AUSL Advisor
Legacy Award -- Jennie Finch, two-time Olympian, MLB Softball Ambassador and AUSL advisor
Rising Star Award -- Sarah Padove, MLB senior manager of baseball and softball development
“This is more than I could have ever dreamed of,” Padove said. “I think back to the conversations we were having six, seven years ago, and to have come full circle on one of the biggest platforms at MLB’s jewel event during All-Star Week, it’s bigger than my whole imagination.”
Monday’s luncheon was the first All-Star activation for the AUSL, speaking to the growth that the league has seen with this partnership. Ng thought back to 2020, when she was working at MLB with Padove and the two were cold-calling college softball programs to raise awareness for what MLB was doing to help grow softball.
Now professional softball is being celebrated on a national scale at the All-Star Game.
“For all of us, especially some of the folks in that room that have been in the softball world for decades, I think those are some of the more surreal moments,” Ng said. “The numbers are the numbers, and the numbers are telling a great story about the growth. But when you hear some of the other stories -- like in Round Rock, a couple of weeks ago. We heard that in the suites, as they were watching Minor League Baseball, they were asking for management to turn on an AUSL game.
“Those are the stories that make you freeze in your tracks and really appreciate what’s going on.”
Ng had just come from the Jennie Finch Classic as part of a day full of softball for her. She mingled with guests at the luncheon -- women from around the sports world, and several from Atlanta, were invited -- before participating in a fireside chat alongside Finch and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has been at the forefront of the MLB-AUSL partnership.
“We’ve had, for years, appreciated the significance of softball in terms of the growth of fans,” Manfred said during the panel. “We had been looking at the possibility of doing something with professional softball for a number of years. We looked at the landscape -- we thought about a startup -- but as we became more and more familiar with AUSL and decided that given the infrastructure that was in place, the people that were involved, we thought it was the best way to grow softball.”
Manfred reiterated that more growth was on the way with this partnership and mentioned that MLB owners were equally interested in investment.
“When you have an entity what AUSL is right now, there are going to be plateaus,” Manfred said. “... The quality of this game is so underappreciated, I think when when you get to those plateaus, you’re going to see Major League Baseball, because of the support of the owners, stepping up and making this partnership everything I believe it can be over the long haul.”
Those comments and that mindset is why Monday -- and the last six weeks -- have been so exciting for those involved in softball and the AUSL.
“The fandom is there,” Watley said. “The engagement is there. We know the visibility is there. But are we able to pack multiple stadiums across different markets at different times consistently? That’s the next level. And it’ll be interesting to see how we do it because we know the interest is there."
After speaking about how proud she was that her 3-year-old daughter could now turn on television and watch softball, Watley added: “It’s just a blend of emotions. It feels so good, and it feels like momentum in the right direction for the first time.”