- ESPN will air AU Professional Basketball for the primary time; Deal now contains all 4 athletes limitless sports activities
- Over 70% of video games shall be distributed on linear TV, with remaining video games featured on ESPN+
Reflecting the spectacular progress of Athletes Limitless in addition to ESPN’s ongoing dedication to ladies’s professional sports activities, the events introduced a multi-year renewal of ESPN’s rights settlement. For the primary time, the deal will embody all 4 Athletes Limitless sports activities – ladies’s professional basketball, softball, lacrosse and volleyball. The addition of AU Professional Basketball comes amid ESPN’s unimaginable success with the WNBA and faculty basketball, and additional positions AU Professional Basketball as a mainstay within the ladies’s basketball ecosystem in addition to a number one platform for entrepreneurs seeking to attain sports activities followers.
In 2024 alone, greater than 70 stay video games from the progressive player-centric professional ladies’s sports activities group will air solely on ESPN platforms, with greater than 50 airing on linear networks and the remaining video games accessible on ESPN+, the main sports activities streaming service. As well as, ESPN may have worldwide rights for these competitions to air on TSN in Canada, ESPN Latin America, and different platforms.
Every Athletes Limitless season options world-class expertise competing to be topped particular person champion of their sport, with playoff-level depth in each sport. Named one in every of Quick Firm’s Most Progressive Firms in 2023, Athletes Limitless options an Advisory Board comprised of an illustrious group of high-profile contributors from the worlds of sports activities, enterprise and leisure together with basketball legend and ESPN ladies’s faculty basketball analyst Sheryl Swoopes, two-time NBA champion and entrepreneur Kevin Durant and Wealthy Kleiman of 35 Ventures; U.S. Ladies’s Nationwide Soccer Crew celebrity Abby Wambach, amongst many others.
Athletes Limitless occasions scored spectacular will increase in viewership throughout ESPN platforms in 2023, together with a 25% year-over-year enhance for AU Professional Lacrosse on ESPN2 and ESPNU and a 38% year-over-year enhance for AU Professional Softball on ESPNU. With all 4 AU Professional Sports activities featured within the upcoming Olympic Video games in addition to explosive curiosity in every sport on the collegiate stage, the property is poised for continued progress.
The partnership will start later this month with ESPN’s protection of AU Professional Basketball, which suggestions off February 29 at Honest Park Coliseum in Dallas. The 40 participant roster options Olympians, WNBA All-Stars and WNBA champions, together with 18 gamers who completed the 2023 WNBA season on a roster, together with 11 extra athletes with WNBA expertise.
ESPN’s full 2024 protection of Athletes Limitless Professional Sports activities contains:
|
Sport/Dates |
Complete Video games (All Networks) |
ESPN Linear Networks |
ESPN+ |
|
AU Professional Basketball (Feb/Mar) |
24 |
– |
6 |
|
AU Professional Softball AUX (June) |
18 |
18 |
– |
|
AU Professional Lacrosse (Jul/Aug) |
24 |
12 |
– |
|
AU Professional Softball (Jul/Aug) |
30 |
12 |
3 |
|
AU Professional Volleyball (Oct/Nov) |
30 |
15 |
5 |
|
Totals |
126 |
57 |
14 |
“ESPN has been completely essential to the success of Athletes Limitless, showcasing our superb world-class athletes on the most important world stage in sports activities. ESPN’s renewed and expanded dedication to Athletes Limitless is each a validation of our enterprise mannequin in addition to a testomony to the rising recognition of those sports activities on the skilled stage,” stated Jon Patricof, CEO and Co-Founding father of Athletes Limitless. “With all 4 of our professional ladies’s sports activities now featured on ESPN, we look ahead to working with their unimaginable group to take Athletes Limitless to even better heights within the coming years to serve followers in addition to manufacturers seeking to attain followers of girls’s sports activities.”
“We’re excited to showcase much more world-class feminine athletes by this new settlement with Athletes Limitless as a part of ESPN’s longstanding dedication to ladies’s sports activities,” stated Dan Margulis, senior director of programming & acquisitions, ESPN. “This settlement permits us to proceed to showcase the sports activities we function on the collegiate stage – highlighting these athletes all through faculty and into their skilled careers. We look ahead to presenting our debut season of AU Professional Basketball on ESPN platforms along with the favored league competitions that exist already in volleyball, softball and lacrosse.”
About Athletes Limitless
Named one in every of Quick Firm’s Most Progressive Firms in 2023, Athletes Limitless is a brand new mannequin of professional sports activities, the place athletes are decision-makers and particular person gamers are champions of group sports activities. Athletes Limitless owns and operates skilled ladies’s softball, lacrosse, volleyball and basketball leagues that includes world-class competitors and fan expertise, and stands out as a corporation pushed by the athletes that play within the leagues, with athlete illustration on the corporate’s board of administrators, every league led by a Participant Government Committee, and gamers sharing in long-term income of the corporate, all whereas being proactive in shaping insurance policies supporting the moms that play within the league. Athletes Limitless is the primary skilled sports activities league to be organized as a Public Profit Company. For extra data, go to AUProSports.com.
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