What’s one big indicator for Kim Ng that her revamped softball league has legs?
Her former employer, Major League Baseball, is heavily involved.
Athletes Unlimited has had softball among its multiple women’s pro sports offerings for several years, and this summer launched Athletes Unlimited Softball League with Ng as its commissioner. At the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York earlier this month, Ng spoke highly of MLB’s investment in AUSL.
“Having worked at Major League Baseball for 10 years, they don’t take these types of investments lightly, and it took up until this point for them to feel comfortable in what was going on in the pro women’s game,” Ng said.
Softball has a strong fanbase—both the Women’s College World Series and Little League Softball World Series notched record viewership this year. But the sport has struggled to consistently flourish at the professional level. AUSL is the first to receive buy-in from MLB, which reportedly bought an eight-figure stake, larger than 20% of the new league.
“I had never seen such investment, forget the financial part, but investment in terms of human resources, in terms of dedication across 10-plus different departments, across their platforms, the MLB Network, they had five of our games, we were on MLB.com, dot TV, our non-exclusive games in front of the paywall, they had game highlights throughout the season, they had game coverage,” Ng said. “So the support, not just in a verbal and fiduciary way, but in a meaningful, very visible way for us.”
Ng said MLB has already come in with more ideas and support during the AUSL offseason to start planning for next summer.
A former college softball player, Ng worked her way up through several MLB teams and the league office before her historic stint as the Marlins general manager from 2020 to 2023, the first woman to hold the position in any MLB club.
Athletes Unlimited was founded in 2020 by Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros, and also runs professional women’s leagues for basketball and volleyball. (Its lacrosse league was suspended at the end of last year.)
With four teams traveling across the country, AUSL made over $1 million in merchandise and posted 20 sellouts in its debut season. Next year, the league is expanding to six teams and committing to dedicated home markets instead of continuing a traveling model.
“In previous iterations of a pro softball league, they were living hand-to-mouth,” Ng said. “Obviously you can’t make those types of investments in situations like that. So I think [MLB] really saw the runway that we had and hopefully they maybe saw me as a link to the future.”
