Athletes Unlimited, a progressive sports league for women athletes in basketball, lacrosse, softball and volleyball, is signing big deals with stars and distributors. Cheddar News speaks with Jon Patricof, CEO and co-founder of Athletes Unlimited about how the league is shaking up the world of professional sports.

Closing Bell

New Professional Sports League Focuses on Female Athletes

A new progressive network of sports leagues allows women athletes to showcase their talents even during the off season. It's called athletes unlimited and it features the world's best professional players in four popular sports, softball, indoor volleyball, basketball and the cross highlighting individual players rather than teams in each league led by a player executive committee. So joining me now is john Patrick off Ceo and co founder of athletes unlimited, john, it's great to have you down here on the floor of the stock exchange after of course, your organization celebrating the close of trade. Congratulations. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. It's National Girls and Women in Sports day. And so we're proud that the stock exchange invited us down to ring the closing bell. Absolutely. You're the co founder of this organization. What's the real goal here and why did you want to start it? So our goal here is to build a very big successful business in professional sports. And it just so happens, we started with women's professional sports because that's where the biggest opportunity is today. I think sports ownership and sports team ownership and leagues are really in kind of the third stage of evolution in this country. They used to be owned by families, private individuals. Second wave, it really got professionalized in this third wave. We're seeing really the advent of new leagues popping up in sports where they haven't been able to sustain themselves in the past. And so we're really taking advantage of that trend, that opportunity and really excited to be building athletes unlimited. I agree. I think there is a massive opportunity here. Um how do you quantify that opportunity from a business? Well, when we started out in athletes unlimited, we actually started with a blank sheet of paper in 2020 and we could have started in any league, We wanted any sport. We chose pro softball and pro volleyball is the first to sports because when we looked at the tv ratings at the college level, when we look at the sheer size of participation audience, the numbers were just staggering. And so we launched league starting in softball, then in volleyball and really what we're measuring our success is the success of the tv ratings with new big deal with ESPN that covers three of our four leagues, great partners that are coming in like Nike and Gatorade Ey Aspiration, a host of others and that's really, really the big metrics is like how are the tv ratings doing the fan growth and then seeing the partners and corporate sponsors follow. So it sounds like you think the viewership obviously is there the data shows that the viewership is there, Do you think there does need to be a shift in culture or maybe new generations more interested in women's sports because we know whether it comes down to pay viewership at the top level, male sports have dominated for Absolutely. I mean, I think that what I noticed I've been an entrepreneur, I've been in the sports and media industry, my whole career, I've looked at this through a lens of what an investor or a business executive would look at it. And when I looked at it two years ago I was just absolutely surprised by how the numbers didn't match up with a way in which it wasn't being invested in. It wasn't getting enough coverage on television, it wasn't getting enough support from corporate partners and that's starting to change dramatically. You're seeing massive appreciation and sports team values and the women's soccer league. You're seeing big investments and bigger media deals on the W. N. B. A. And others and athletes unlimited's following along in the sports we're in. So it's been it's a great moment to be in women's pro sports and sports in general. How's it going to work and how do people watch? So we start 2023 with our pro basketball league. It will take place in Dallas, you can tune in on CBS sports network or host digital options and then the next three leagues will all run this summer and into the fall their games will be all on ESPN on T. V. And E. S. P. Plus people can tune in and then go to a U. Pro sports dot com for all the information. Most of these games are they live they are so all of the games we produce our live on television or on digital streaming services and so easy to tune in incredibly accessible and for fans of these sports that haven't had those options before. It's just it's a huge boon is there sort of a popular time slaughter a consistent times thought that these games do usually air. So our games in basketball for example, will happen on typically on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays same well saying that same format and the other three leagues as well. And of course you want to be in prime time, you want to be surrounded by the best programming you can possibly surrounded and have great lead ins always helps drive the numbers. But really what we're seeing today is that fans of today are really following the athletes and our model is really centered around that. It's an exciting format where every moment counts and it's only a five week season, it's really intense and a lot of action and you follow us on social, most of our fans were seeing follow us on social, follow the athletes and then tune in to watch the games. What's been the reception from athletes? I'm sure they like this. So the athletes love it. I mean in some of our sports like lacrosse were the only pro league in the entire world. Same thing in softball and the pro league in the United States. Um, and then when you look at other sports like basketball where we've just launched last year we're creating an option in the W. NBA offseason for players to stay here in the United States that historically had to go overseas and now there's an option here in the U. S. So there's a lot of great growth, a lot of opportunities and the response from the Is tremendous. It's there obviously being compensated and having a chance to play in front of big audiences. What is the compensation for athletes? What's that breakdown? Yes. So it averages around 20,000 for the five week season. It can go up to about 50,000 were clearly investing and wanting to make it more over time. A lot of athletes are supplementing this either with another professional opportunity in the au off season or with some other opportunity. And the way we see the everything evolving is that ultimately, you know, there'll be a time when there will be athletes and LTD leads to an extent that players can exclusively play in an AU league. And I'm sure obviously the business model mostly driven by advertising is that the case, advertising media, we have a membership club called the unlimited club which is really kind of like a virtual season ticket and that's working incredibly well. And then of course merchandise and all the other kind of ancillary revenue streams that are important in a consumer product business and an intellectual property business like ours. All right, john Patrick off Ceo and co founder of athletes, unlimited john thank you, thank you