Softball is getting a professional league – and UCLA is set to play a massive role in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League’s inaugural season this summer.

Former Bruin stars will feature on the field, and UCLA will also have coaching and managerial representation.

The league will begin with four teams and a traveling schedule of 24 games, before permanent homes are solidified for the teams ahead of next year.

Six Bruin alumni were selected in the inaugural draft in January. Pitchers Megan Faraimo and Rachel Garcia were picked in the first round by the Talons and the Volts, respectively, while catcher Sharlize Palacios, utility Bubba Nickles, shortstop Maya Brady and infielder Delanie Wisz rounded out the Bruin draft class. Outfielder Jadelyn Allchin also signed with the Talons after the draft’s conclusion.

The league is an opportunity for players to push their skills to the next level, providing a concrete option post-college.

Past versions of the ASUL featured tournament-style weekends, with changing and short-lived teams. Nickles won the individual point-based tournament in 2024.

“It’s definitely more of a consistency – not just with, obviously, relationships and having teammates I can build relationships with, and a coaching staff I can build a relationship with – but also being able to understand how we all operate on a playing field,” Nickles said. “There’s a lot of strategy within our sport, and a lot of trying to fit together moving parts.”

With the uncertainty caused by softball’s back-and-forth inclusion in the Summer Olympics, Inouye-Perez said a professional league would be invaluable to the longevity of professional softball after college. She also said the existence of a professional league raises softball to the level of other women’s sports – including soccer, basketball, tennis and golf.

Inouye-Perez added that former UCLA star Brady – who won back-to-back Pac-12 Player of the Year awards in 2023 and 2024 – was unsure if she wanted to continue playing softball after graduating from college.

“It’s what you do when you’re great at it,” Inouye-Perez said. “So if you can get paid, do it. And then when you’re ready to be done, be done, because you don’t have to play – you get to play.”

Any league set to play a major role in the softball landscape needs to be maintainable – and UCLA’s Director of Softball Administration Kirk Walker expects the AUSL to deliver.

“It’s obviously a huge honor and excitement to be involved with it,” Walker said. “From my perspective, having been around the sport for 45-50 years, this is the first venture in the pro model that has unified support and is being done in a way that’s going to be sustainable.”

Leading the league in its effort to cultivate longevity is commissioner Kim Ng – former general manager of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins, and someone who UCLA Associate Head Softball Coach Lisa Fernandez said understands how to establish the new league.

Walker makes up one part of the Talons’ coaching staff – joined by Will Oldham, UCLA’s director of player development and data analytics, while Fernandez fills the Talons’ general manager role.

“UCLA athletes and coaches have been heavily involved at the highest level of softball for many, many years, dominating the national team or former pro teams,” Walker said. “To have a presence of UCLA people bodes really well for professionalism and for getting the top-level athletes and coaches involved.”

Nickles, another UCLA assistant coach and former Bruin softballer, will play in the league for the Bandits.

“One of our biggest goals with the program (UCLA) is trying to get them to be involved in the game, if they choose to, for as long as possible,” Nickles said. “Foundations that were built at UCLA are being built upon after their college career, with wanting to continue playing and wanting to grow the sport, because presence is huge.”

At the end of the day, Fernandez said, it’s all about growing the game of softball.

Walker said this league is also an opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in the sport – to create a sustainable, professional option for the most talented athletes in the country.

“You bring top athletes and coaches from different programs that have different cultures and different philosophies, and when you bring those together with a common goal and a common focus, it can be really exciting,” Walker said.