Oct 28, 2020 - Sports

Women's sports network Athletes Unlimited plans its next moves

Kendall Baker

Athletes Unlimited, a network of women's sports leagues that uses fantasy-style scoring, successfully completed its first season of softball last month.

Why it matters: While most leagues scrambled to create one-off bubble tournaments, Athletes Unlimited didn't have to change too much about its model, which was already designed for short, single-site seasons.

"Our vision was always to host each season in a single market and build storytelling and other elements around that," co-founder and CEO Jon Patricof tells me.
"Not having in-person fans certainly changed things, but ticketing revenue was never a huge part of the equation for us anyway."
"If you put medical/testing aside, the pandemic changed call it 10% of our model; whereas for most other leagues it changed 90% of their model."

What's next: Athletes Unlimited will take what it did with softball this summer and try to apply that model to two other sports next year — possibly with fans in the stands this time.

Volleyball: February 2021 (Nashville)
Lacrosse: July 2021 (TBD)

The big picture: There are clear avenues for growth in women's sports, and the pandemic has helped revealed them.

WNBA ratings are up.
NWSL ratings are way up.
The NWHL is maturing in promising ways.
And now, softball, volleyball and lacrosse have a new professional home.

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Women's sports network Athletes Unlimited plans its next moves

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