What Is the AUSL?

The AUSL is the top professional women's softball league in the United States. It is owned and operated by Athletes Unlimited, launched competitive play in June 2025, and is backed by a strategic investment from Major League Baseball announced May 29, 2025. The league plays a 25-game regular season in 2026 across six city-based teams, followed by a championship series. Games air on ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN2, and ABC.

Kim Ng is the league's first Commissioner, appointed April 16, 2025. She is the first woman in history to serve as General Manager of a major American men's professional sports team. She held that role with the Miami Marlins from 2020 to 2023. Before Miami she worked in senior roles with the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Major League Baseball's central office. When MLB and Athletes Unlimited were looking for a commissioner with the institutional credibility to build a pro softball league from expansion toward permanence, Ng was the hire.

Ng's husband Tony Markward is co-owner (with Alex Clark) of Silas Wines, a biodynamic winery in Amity, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. Read the full profile: Kim Ng's career and the Portland connection.

On May 29, 2025, Major League Baseball announced a strategic investment in the AUSL to help establish the league as a sustainable long-term organization. The partnership gives the AUSL institutional backing that previous attempts at a women's professional softball league (most recently National Pro Fastpitch, which played 2004-2021 with interruptions) never had.

Practically, the MLB tie provides credibility for broadcast deals, facility access, and operational expertise. Several AUSL games in 2025 were played at MLB or MiLB ballparks. Hillsboro Ballpark, the Cascade's home, is itself a MiLB venue (the Arizona Diamondbacks' Short-Season A affiliate Hillsboro Hops).

ESPN is the AUSL's founding broadcast partner. Under a multi-year deal, 50 exclusive games air annually across:

• ESPN (linear cable, including Opening Day)
• ESPN2 (linear cable)
• ESPN+ (streaming)
• ABC (broadcast television) — one marquee game per year. This is the first time professional softball has aired on US broadcast television.

Specific game-by-game broadcast assignments are announced closer to each series. For up-to-date broadcast info on Cascade games, see our Cascade schedule page and Portland how-to-watch guide.

The 2026 AUSL season runs roughly six weeks, from June 9 through late July, with a 25-game regular season. Each team plays each of the other five roughly five times (three game series, typical for softball). The Cascade play five series at home (12 games) and five on the road (13 games).

Playoffs: The top three teams qualify. The #2 and #3 seeds meet in a play-in game. The top seed earns a bye into a best-of-three Championship Series against the play-in winner. The Championship runs after the regular season concludes.

Separately, the AUSL operates the All-Star Cup, a four-week season using Athletes Unlimited's original format where players compete individually rather than on fixed teams and earn points based on performance. The All-Star Cup complements the city-based regular season.

Average AUSL player compensation is $40,000 to $45,000, with total earnings reaching up to $75,000 through bonus structures. That range positions the AUSL among the best-paying women's pro softball leagues in the world. By comparison, NPF paid roster minimums around $3,000-$6,000 per season in its final years, and many professional softball players supplemented income by playing overseas in Japan or Italy during the offseason.

Athletes Unlimited launched in 2020 with a unique individual-competition format across multiple women's sports: softball, lacrosse, volleyball, basketball. The softball competition ran for several seasons in that format before Athletes Unlimited pivoted toward a team-based league model.

2024: The AUSL is founded as a new women's professional softball league under the Athletes Unlimited umbrella.

June 2025: Inaugural AUSL season begins with four teams — Blaze, Bandits, Talons, Volts — playing a 24-game touring format across six to eight different cities. The Utah Talons win the inaugural championship.

April 16, 2025: Kim Ng named first Commissioner.

May 29, 2025: MLB announces strategic investment in AUSL.

December 2025: Expansion Draft and Allocation Draft fill rosters for the two 2026 expansion teams, Portland Cascade and Oklahoma City Spark. See the full Cascade roster here.

June 9, 2026: AUSL transitions to permanent city-based format. All six teams play on Opening Day. Portland Cascade's first game is at Carolina Blaze.

June 18, 2026: Portland Cascade home opener vs OKC Spark at Hillsboro Ballpark. See the preview.

Three things won Portland an AUSL franchise.

A proven market for pro women's sports. The Portland Thorns have led the NWSL in attendance for ten of the league's thirteen seasons. The Portland Fire sold more than 15,000 season memberships before drafting a single player. By 2026 Portland will support three pro women's teams across three different leagues — the most of any American city, per the case for Portland as Title Town.

Softball roots. Portland hosted the Little League Softball World Series for more than 20 years. The region has college softball programs at Oregon (Pac-12) and Oregon State, and an active youth fastpitch scene.

Commissioner Kim Ng's personal tie. Ng's husband Tony Markward co-owns Silas Wines in Amity, Oregon. She is familiar with the Willamette Valley through that connection. Whether this was a formal factor in Portland's bid is not publicly documented, but the personal familiarity matters for league-to-city relationships.

The result is a franchise that arrives with structural advantages no previous women's softball league expansion team ever had: institutional MLB backing, ESPN broadcast exposure from day one, a six-team traditional format, and a city that already knows how to fill a Thorns stadium.