Pro softball league set to make ‘legendary’ debut in Wichita on Saturday
A historic day for women’s professional softball will take place in Wichita on Saturday.
The debut season of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which recently gained the full-fledged support of Major League Baseball, will kick off at Wilkins Stadium on Wichita State’s campus with a game featuring Maize graduate and Olympic medalist Kelsey Stewart-Hunter.
A fan fest featuring softball legend Cat Osterman and free ice cream for the first 500 guests is slated for 4 p.m., while the game between the Volts and Blaze is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and will be the first pro softball game ever to be broadcast on MLB Network.
“This is just the beginning and this is going to be legendary, like our slogan says,” said Stewart-Hunter, who will play for the Volts.
“We’ve been waiting for this (moment). For it to finally come to fruition, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ Everything we’ve been doing, all of those games where we had five people show up or maybe 100 show up, it was all worth it to get to this point and be at this level. It can only go up from here.”
Wichita has earned a reputation for being a community that supports sporting events, particularly women’s sporting events. That has correlated with the recent rise of the Wichita State softball program under coach Kristi Bredbenner, which has helped propel interest in softball in the area even further.
It’s not a coincidence Athletes Unlimited pegged Wichita to host in its debut weekend, particularly after the success last summer of hosting its entire season of AUX games at Wilkins Stadium.
“This is a huge deal for Wichita to be able to host the premiere and a huge nod to how the fans came out last year and have come out in the past and supported Shocker softball,” Bredbenner said. “Wichita has a strong love for the game of softball and hopefully we can show it this summer and continue to host these games here every summer. Wichita has done such a good job of investing in women’s sports over the last five, 10 years and I hope we continue to do that.”
During the inaugural season, four teams — the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts — will compete in a barnstorming-style schedule that will feature 24 games each in 10 different cities between June 7 and July 23. The top two teams will then play in a best-of-3 series for the AUSL championship at the University of Alabama from July 26-28.
The AUSL will then switch to a city-based league beginning in 2026, with Wichita in contention to be one of the four cities with a team.
And with the recent backing of MLB, which announced late last month that it is making a “strategic investment” to help the AUSL become an established entity, the future for professional women’s softball seems brighter than ever.
“Am I surprised? Absolutely not,” said Stewart-Hunter, a 10-year veteran. “We’ve been on this level for a really long time, we’ve just been waiting for people to take notice.”
Not only will select games be broadcast on MLB Network, but AUSL athletes and storylines will be featured across MLB’s digital platforms and incorporated into MLB events like the All-Star Game and postseason games to help raise the visibility of softball.
ESPN is also on board as the founding broadcast partner.
“I think this is an incredible step for both sports,” AUSL commissioner Kim Ng said recently. “Having worked at Major League Baseball for 10 years and having led that softball division, we were always trying to connect with the women’s side, with women’s college softball. And so, to now be able to come and have Major League Baseball support women’s pro softball and that landscape just is so meaningful to me, and to so many other young women and girls playing the sport.”
The meteoric rise of the AUSL is special to watch for a longtime veteran in the softball world like Kelly Kretschman, an All-American at Alabama from 1998-01, 2004 Olympic gold medalist and nine-time professional all-star.
Kretschman will coach the Volts, including Stewart-Hunter, in a 3-game series against the Blaze in Wichita. Game times following Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. opener include a 4 p.m. Sunday tilt and a 6 p.m. Monday affair at Wilkins Stadium.
“I played professional softball for 13 years and I’ve been through a bunch of different entities, so to have AUSL take over is really exciting because they do it right from the top to the bottom,” Kretschman said. “Now to have MLB jump on board is something we’ve been trying to do for a really long time. It’s really exciting to have our name next to their name and be able to use their branding and all of those things that the MLB brings. Now as a young athlete, you can dream about being a professional softball player and not just to play in the College World Series.”
After the opening 3-day stretch, Wichita will play host to all four teams later this month with doubleheaders scheduled for Tuesday, June 17, and Wednesday, June 18, that will feature the return of Sydney McKinney, a Wichita State legend, to Wilkins Stadium with the Bandits.
This story was originally published June 6, 2025 at 3:20 PM.
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