Welcome to the AUSL
Even though the fourth of July is still over twenty days away, we had plenty of fireworks last night as the AUSL started regular season play. I didn't get to watch the early game where The Blaze took on Carolina, but I did watch the beginning of the 7 PM game when Oklahoma opened a can of pain on Texas. The first run of the game at the hands of Oklahoma via a walk in due to the bases being loaded. Then with the next batter the first hit of the game was a massive grand slam home run that set the tone for the rest of the game.
Oklahoma took down Texas 13 to 5, meanwhile in that earlier game Carolina took down their opponent 4 to 1. Finally, in the late game, Chicago was shut down by Utah 5 to 2. While the other games weren't quite as exciting as that middle one, there was still a lot of great softball played.
The teams face off again today at 6 PM, 8 PM, and 10 PM respectively. Then more games on June 11th, 13th, 14th, etc.
Athletes Unlimited is a pretty innovative organization that is trying to level the playing field between women's sports and men's sports. Currently Athletes Unlimited only has leagues for softball, basketball, and volleyball, but I wouldn't be surprised if that expands in the future.
One of the key features of the AU leagues is that players didn't play for a specific team. Instead, there was a new draft each week and players would shuffle around based on the results of that draft. It made for some pretty interesting match ups each week. It also created a more cohesive bond between the players since your bitter rival one week might be your teammate the next.
However, with the 2026 softball season they have moved away from the rolling draft format and players will be based on a specific team throughout the season now. In the past it was all based on individual stats and the top players would draft their teammates for the following week.
While it might seem counter intuitive to the whole "there is no I in team" mentality, AU is dedicated to celebrating the individual athletes with a player based leader board versus a team based one.
One of the key tenants of AU is that they are focused on the health and well being of the athletes, physically, mentally, and financially. Where other organizations are focused solely on how much profit they can make, AU seems to be more about returning those fund to the players.
I think it's actually pretty cool that they are coming out with leagues like this to give players the opportunity to play at the next level after their university career is over.
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It's an interesting approach and there are a lot of teams trying to crack the code of models that will support players more. Baseball is a tough one because you can go through so many balls. Potentially 4 dozen a game. Then the umps, travel expenses, stadium leases. The numbers are very hard to work.
I feel like with Softball they wouldn't lose as many balls but also with the living situations women demand more. Love level Indyball sometimes the guys can be in a brutal living situation or sketchy tweaker hotel situations on the road.
I was actually just looking at that up the other day about the balls and in softball they usually require spectators to return the balls. It turns out there are a lot more foul balls because the field is so much smaller and it would cost them too much if they just let people keep them like they do in baseball.
For Liberation League in 2020 one mom always brought her 4 girls and they would chase down foul balls and i would buy them each back for $1 a piece.
One of the things that has overran a lot of the baseball promotions is Entertainment Ball, Savanah Bananas and there are 5 or 6 other promotions. I personally think it will get oversaturated and the initial fan base will sort of grow out of it partially. It's hard to fully tell.
WWE sort of grew up with a certain set of kids and got more and more insane into the D Generation X Era.
I personally think Banana ball and other promotions will end up like the And 1 Mix Tape Tour or like the Harlem Globe Trotters. Where it is still there in a reduced capacity.
You might have heard about this guy. It's certainly one of the craziest sports stories.
It's crazy how big Bananna ball has blown up over the past few years. It seems like everyone is scrambling to get tickets. I agree with you though, I think it will eventually die out.
Yeah, i actually like the Bananas when they played real baseball because it was more like unique entertainment that didn't change the rules of the game. Like they had a break dancing first base coach and stuff like that. Then around 2021 and 2022 they would do an entertainment series preseason with Indyball guys and then those guys would play their regular season and the Bananas would play college summer ball in the Coastal Plains League. Past that they haven't played real baseball and now all the Entertainment ball promotions are trying to out gymick each other. In some respects they could go pretty far with it. It became more of a strip show with several juiced out guys. It it more of a Bachelorette party for single moms with 5 year old kids.
Haha, that last part is pretty much spot on it feels like.
🤣 I laughed at it after I wrote it and sent it to one of the guys who actually lives in Savanah and hates that whole thing.