Athletes Unlimited expands ESPN broadcasting deal to include coverage of all four leagues

The GIST: On Wednesday, Athletes Unlimited (AU) announced that all four of its month-long pro women’s sports leagues — basketball, softball, volleyball, and lacrosse — will broadcast games on ESPN platforms. The deal is a multiyear renewal of the entertainment network’s previous agreement with AU, which saw impressive viewership growth YoY. It’s like they have ESPN or something.

The details: Although financial details are unknown, ESPN will show a quarter of AU basketball games (6), about two-thirds of softball games (38), half of the lacrosse games (12), and two-thirds of volleyball games (20). That’s just over half of all 126 AU games this year, with 57 airing on linear networks and 14 streaming on ESPN+.

• This varies from last year’s deal, which also featured 57 games on linear TV but showed 42 games on ESPN+. According to Front Office Sports, AU strategically reduced its ESPN+ catalog to make room for competing networks and is currently in active negotiations to bring the remaining games to broadcast TV.

The leverage: As AU’s popularity grows, so does its market value. ESPN is in the company of other AU broadcasters like CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and Bally Sports. In fact, AU’s upwards trajectory among ESPN viewers gives them crucial leverage when negotiating deals with other networks.

• Plus, all four of these sports will be in the Olympics come 2028, an event that is always a ratings winner. Although NBC owns Olympic broadcasting rights until 2032, the AU deal allows ESPN to cash in on Olympic popularity for these surging sports.

Zooming out: After years of being sidelined by major networks, women’s sports leagues are in a position to negotiate for enhanced deals. As networks use women’s sports to prop up their streamers, AU knows its product deserves primetime linear coverage, too. The recent NWSL deal set the tone, and it's helping other leagues achieve the same success. Time to get paid.