Oklahoma softball won their fourth straight national title last week in Oklahoma City – the first-ever four-peat in college softball history. Their senior class has never not been in the Women’s College World Series and never walked away without a win.
The 2024 Best-of-3 Finals between the Sooners and Texas Longhorns was the most-watched in the history of the event, drawing 1.9 million viewers for Game 1 and 2 million viewers for the clinching Game 2 victory. Game 1 was the largest audience on record and the Finals series was up 24% from last year and surpassed 2015’s Florida-Michigan series to set the new record.
Despite the epic high from watching Oklahoma make history and four-peat for the national championship, there is still softball to watch all summer through the partnership between ESPN and Athletes Unlimited (AUX and AU). The AUX season will begin Monday, June 10 with former WCWS superstars Odicci Alexander (former James Madison University pitcher), homerun titan Jocelyn Alo (former Oklahoma Sooner and most recent addition to the Savannah Bananas), and new additions Montana Fouts (former Alabama pitcher) and Peyton Gottshall (former Bowling Green State University and University of Tennessee pitcher).
AUX and AU softball are non-traditional formats allowing four teams that consistently change and switch each week based on a point system and the leaderboard. For traditional softball fans, this is different and outside the box of the game they know but allows for teams to not only win and earn collective points but rewards breakout performances from players. Additionally, the AUX and AU format allows for fan participation, as fans can vote for their Most Valuable Player from each game, giving them a stake in the results.
The AUX season runs from June 10-25 at Wilkins Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University allowing 42 athletes to compete over two weeks. The AU season runs for five weeks with 60 players from July 26-August 25 at Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont, Illinois, the now permanent home for AU over the next five years as the league recently signed an extension will the ballpark. During the WCWS, Athletes Unlimited announced they would be launching a new traditional softball league, Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) in 2025 with four teams competing in a 30-game season in 6-8 different cities with the league establishing a permanent home and location by 2026.
For longtime softball fans, AUSL welcomes back softball legends Jessica Mendoza (former Stanford Cardinal, two-time Olympic medalist, now ESPN broadcaster for the WCWS), Cat Osterman (former Texas Longhorn pitcher, three-time Olympic medalist, and AU athlete), and Natasha Watley (former UCLA Bruin and two-time Olympic medalist) as advisors to the league. These legends are hopeful this addition to the AU platform will see continued interest and attention for women’s softball, particularly professional softball, “Athletes Unlimited has generated unprecedented national coverage for professional softball by ensuring widespread broadcast distribution for its leagues,” said Mendoza.
In comparison to previous iterations of professional softball leagues, AU early on signed a partnership with ESPN platforms allowing for the product to be tied to a media conglomerate, but also have a wider and more accessible reach than ever before. Former Duke softball player and now softball broadcaster Raine Wilson feels this is a dramatic shift as she tells a story from her youth when there was limited visibility of playing professional softball, “I found a note that I wrote when I was in kindergarten saying I was going to play for the Chicago Cubs, that was my idea of what playing professionally would be, just playing baseball but then I checked another note I wrote when I was 8,9, 10 and it was about playing for the Olympic team. I didn’t even know there was professional softball at that time.”
The growth of the league and opportunity for women to play past college is not lost on Watley, “The AUSL not only gives players another platform to showcase their talent at the highest level but allows many athletes to extend their softball careers past college and professionally. It also inspires millions of young girls to follow their idols and aspire to be a professional athlete one day.”
Former Morehead State softball player and now social media manager for AU, Adeline Nicholson feels that there is a shift in softball that is bringing in fans in a way previous iterations of professional softball did not. She said, “I think one of the biggest things that we have noticed and capitalized on is these athletes coming from their colleges and they have a huge fanbase that are diehard Florida State fans or diehard Alabama fans. Those athletes are coming straight from college and now have a place to play, and their fans shift with them to the pro league.”
For former softball athletes, there is hope that professional softball will continue to grow and garner support that has been well-established within the collegiate game for some time. Nicholson explains, “There is still more to go, as we have seen the rise and fall of professional softball, the Olympics, NPF, and all these different leagues that have come and gone. I think that is the thing, that consistency, knowing that the league will be around for a couple of years with AU signing another five-year deal with Parkway Complex in Rosemont and offering multi-year deals to athletes; that is something this sport has never seen before. That is why I feel there is a change happening and its going to be around for a long time.”
Wilson adds, “There is clearly a track record of fans being engaged with individuals. You look at folks like Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, and Monica Abbott, that are household names that wrapped up their careers a long time ago, so there is clearly interest there. I think AU is an incredible extension of college softball which allows fans to engage and watch the best in our game go at it every single week. I am happy about the AUSL, the traditional format, that is the direction our sport has to go in.”
