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The GIST: Athletes Unlimited (AU) is taking its softball show on the road. Last Friday, the women’s sports organization announced a doubleheader showdown during August’s Little League Softball World Series in order to promote the sport’s whole ecosystem.

The details: AU players will travel from the Chicago suburbs — where most of the five-week season will take place — to Greenville, N.C. for two games that will air on ESPN2. The org said a Little League crossover event has been in the works since 2019 and is modeled after MLB’s Little League Classic.

• Little League offers a big platform for AU. It will have access to the competition’s IRL audience and visibility with its high-wattage sponsors, while the 12 youth teams competing in N.C. will be able to mingle with the pros.

The context: Baseball is a uniquely popular youth sport in the U.S. — Little League brings in $22M-plus in annual revenue and has an ESPN broadcast deal worth $7.5M a year, but softball is certainly on the rise. Last year’s Little League Softball World Series averaged 294K viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, up 19% YoY.

• 2022’s semifinal was the most watched Little League softball game since 2018 with an average audience of 537K and the tournament saw viewership increase 74% YoY among teens and 30% for women. Home run.

The landscape: AU’s announcement comes during softball’s biggest event — the Women’s College World Series (WCWS). The NCAA tourney already broke its Session 1 attendance record when 12K turned up last Thursday, but the WCWS likely isn’t reaching its full financial potential despite running up the business score last year.

• The 13K-seater USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium is too small to meet IRL demand, and the NCAA’s media availability limits mean ESPN lacks the ability (but not the desire) to share human-interest stories.

Zooming out: There’s potential across softball’s entire landscape to successfully monetize the sport, and AU’s unity play with Little League demonstrates the appetite for collaboration. The first roadblock to overcome? Venues — few elite softball stadiums exist in the U.S. for college and the pros, and baseball parks don’t exactly cut it. Room for improvement.

The GIST: Hashtag: It’s all happening in European women’s soccer. UEFA celebrated Saturday’s Women’s Champions League (UWCL) final with a handful of business wins, showcasing the ever increasing value of women’s club soccer on the continent.

The sponsor: On Friday, UEFA locked in Amazon as an official sponsor of its women’s competitions. Amazon Web Services will develop an online store for UWCL merch and debut the company’s first marketing campaign for a major international sporting event ahead of the 2025 Women’s Euro in Switzerland.

The demand: A sellout crowd of 33K filled Eindhoven’s Philips Stadium on Saturday, breaking the Netherlands’ women’s soccer attendance record. The hype comes as no surprise — 50M fans in 230 territories watched DAZN’s free UWCL coverage on YouTube this season, up 17% YoY. International love.

• Viewership among women grew 3% YoY and was also up for those aged 13 to 34, while mobile device viewing jumped 53%. DAZN will shift its UWCL broadcasts behind a paywall during the upcoming season for the next phase of its four-year deal, which expires in 2025.

Zooming out: Amazon’s sponsorship caters directly to the UWCL’s growing audience and adds a new revenue stream. UEFA’s successful monetization of the competition also shows demand outside of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and value in regularly occurring club matches. Strike while the iron’s hot.

LSU confirmed the end of its seven-figure deal with Caesars Entertainment on Friday as threat of a ban on partnerships between colleges and sportsbooks looms in Louisiana. The school caught flak for sending betting emails to underage students and faced pressure after the American Gaming Association stretched its advertising guidelines.

• LSU isn’t the only school breaking up with sportsbooks — the University of Maryland, Michigan State University (MSU), and the University of Colorado, Boulder recently exited their agreements. A losing bet.

United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) will end its name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals with MSU’s women’s volleyball, men’s basketball, and football teams this month to avoid a conflict of interest now that UWM CEO Mat Ishbia owns the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Mercury.

Starting next month, Google Pixel will serve as title sponsor of the Frauen-Bundesliga, Germany’s top women’s soccer league. The company’s logo will appear on players’ sleeves, in stadiums, and on broadcasts, and it will also assist with the league’s digital visibility through content creation.

• The deal comes days after Google became a sponsor of Germany’s women’s national soccer team with the aim of increasing the profile of the women’s game in the country. Jippi!

🏀 LSU’s Angel Reese appeared in Starry’s new campaign and Latto and Cardi B's new music video for “Put It on Da Floor Again.” Busy bee.

⚽ Over 15K packed Red Bull Arena for NJ/NY Gotham FC’s match yesterday, setting the NWSL club’s attendance record.

💰 The NBA’s Andre Iguodala joined the ownership group of incoming NWSL expansion side Bay FC.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 WSL attendance rose 173% YoY during the 2022–23 season, while viewership of the English soccer league grew 53% on Sky Sports. God save the Queens.

🎾 Serena Williams stars alongside Beyoncé in Gucci’s latest Chime campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the fashion house’s global gender equity initiative.

🥎 Oklahoma’s WCWS dominance is backed by a major donor — Love’s Travel Shops, the Oklahoma City–based, family-owned retail chain.