The AUSL is growing. But, what is the professional softball league?
Lady Vols softball ace got drafted into the AUSL after she graduated from Tennessee. Knox News reporter Cora Hall explains the league, and its growth.
As the parent of Major League Baseball prospect, Renée James got a first-hand look at how chaotic, strenuous and inaccessible the scouting process could be for a young athlete aiming to land a college scholarship or a professional contract.
The former president of the Intel Corporation, who then also founded and sold Ampere Computing, thought to herself: “We can do better.”
“There’s no scouting for women. The men scouting for amateur (sports) is very pay-to-play,” James told USA TODAY Sports. “It is such a rough path that I thought, you know, use your power for good, you could make this better for a lot of kids who didn’t make it who could have gotten college scholarships.”
So, a few weeks ago, James launched Rule42 — a sports technology company aiming to modernize the discovery process for athletes, scouts and teams.
And softball is the sport that Rule42 is jumping into first with both feet.
Rule42 announced on Wednesday, Aug. 18 that it is making a significant investment in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which just completed its second full season. Alongside MLB, the Milwaukee Brewers, Ryan Sanders Baseball and Athletes Unlimited, the Rule42 Sports Group will be among the league’s largest investors. James will also join the AUSL’s Board of Directors.
Additionally, Rule42 has acquired Softball America, one of the leading digital publications that covers all levels of the sport with editorial news and prospect rankings. Softball America’s top 150 prospect rankings for the high school class of 2028 debuted on Rule42’s website on Tuesday.
Softball America will become “Softball America by Rule42” and the entirety of the digital publication’s team will be employed by James’ company. Tara Henry, the general manager of Softball America, is also now the Vice President of Softball at Rule42.
“The idea is to make (Rule42) pretty synonymous with what we’re doing and just continue to grow the game from the youth market to the college market, all the way to the pro market,” Henry told USA TODAY Sports. “Marrying the tech side and the sports side, it was a no-brainer for us. I’m just really excited that we’ll be able to give more athletes opportunities beyond the Power Four, beyond the mid-majors, and really find places to develop and grow talent.”
Softball America’s rankings will be free to access on Rule42’s website, while it will still publish subscriber-only editorial content on the On3 network.
Rule42 is self-funded by James and plans to build an AI-powered technology platform that gives athletes an equal shot at being discovered by college and pro scouts. The service will be free to use for athletes and parents.
The genesis for starting Rule42 came from James watching other parents struggle to get their kids noticed as she was seeing her son Ryan become an MLB prospect who was drafted in the third round this year by the Toronto Blue Jays out of the University of Oregon.
And then James discovered that the process is even tougher for women.
“It’s more than hard. It’s heartbreaking. These parents are taking second mortgages on their homes. For the women, you have to go to a college program to become a pro,” James said. “There’s no formal scouting. There isn’t the infrastructure for women. So, for women, we can leapfrog the decades of the scouting structure that there is for men by using technology.
“And now there are major scholarships for girls that we need to match them with. These coaches in these programs do not have time to find all the talent out there.”
What James is referring to was a domino that fell with the landmark House v. NCAA settlement in 2025 which eliminated sport-specific scholarship caps. It more than doubled the possible number of athletic scholarships that can be offered to women at the Division I level. Previously, many softball programs — and other women’s college sports teams — didn’t have the full complement of scholarships that matched their roster sizes.
With its investment in AUSL, Rule42 will have a footprint at all levels of softball, a sport that has a growing audience.
This year’s Women’s College World Series smashed viewership records for ESPN as it was the most watched WCWS on record, drawing an average of 1.6 million viewers per game. And for the AUSL, ABC drew an average audience of 732,000 viewers for Game 1 of its championship series this year, making it the most-watched professional softball game on record.
All of that is building toward the sport making its return to the Olympics in 2028 on American soil.
“We’re incredibly excited to have Renée on board as an investor,” Jon Patricof, CEO of Athletes Unlimited, told USA TODAY Sports. “She is one of the most accomplished, experienced and successful executives in the technology industry. She is someone who is going to offer us so much, and has already offered so much advice and guidance on how to build a large, scalable business.”
With Kim Ng as its commissioner, merchandise sales for the AUSL increased by 110% this season and social media impressions grew by 97%. Year-over-year television viewership grew by more than 150% as the AUSL had more than 90 games distributed across ESPN platforms, CBS Sports Network and MLB Network this season.
“It’s a very positive opportunity,” James said. “There are girls everywhere playing softball and they wonder, what comes next? And now, the answer is they can be a pro too, and that is why I’m investing in AUSL. I want to see us grow. I want to see us continue.”
Athletes Unlimited announced last month that it was pausing play in its women’s basketball and volleyball leagues. But Patricof made it clear the organization is all-in on softball.
“We’ve had so much success with softball. We’ve significantly expanded our footprint over the last two years in that sport,” Patricof said. “In basketball and volleyball, our thoughts are we want to up the trajectory of what we’re achieving with softball. If we’re going to go forward in either of those sports, it’s going to be in a big and meaningful way, and so, we’re exploring a host of opportunities.
“But for now, softball has become far and away the largest part of the Athletes Unlimited portfolio. We’re just coming off an amazing season and we’re ready for 2027.”