ORLANDO, Fla. -- Montana Fouts walked into the Bonnet Creek Ballroom at the Signia by Hilton on Tuesday night. Unlike the baseball writers typing away at the news of the day, Fouts was on a mission.
Fouts threw a bullpen in the ballroom at baseball’s annual Winter Meetings, showcasing the talents that have made her one of the most feared pitchers in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League.
Fouts, along with AUSL commissioner Kim Ng, infielder Sierra Romero and catcher Sharlize Palacios, joined the Meetings to celebrate the debut season of AUSL, which saw tremendous growth in the world of professional softball in 2025.
AUSL, a new and improved professional women’s softball league, features four teams playing a 24-game season in a traditional format. Fouts and the Talons won the inaugural championship.
“I really didn't know what to expect, honestly,” Fouts said of her rookie season. “I knew that everybody was really good, but I didn't know how that was going to play out. It really has just exceeded all expectations. You truly feel like a pro. You're playing against the best of the best. You're going to have to show up and elevate every time that you go out there. Knowing that and being competitive and having that challenge is great for us as motivation, and also for the next generation to come.”
In its first season, AUSL had 24 sellouts and a 90% stadium-capacity fill rate, Ng said. The season included 340 million social media impressions across AUSL and MLB channels and 347,000 viewers tuning in for the championship round.
“Right off the bat, the season started off and ended up completely exceeding our expectations,” Ng said. “Quite frankly, we didn't know exactly what to expect. We knew that there's a very long history of pro softball, but we have never seen a league anything like this before.
“To have all of that as evidence of the success of the season has just been, quite frankly, mind-boggling for a first-year, young league to post numbers like that.”
Romero, one of the most decorated college softball players in history while at the University of Michigan, thought that she would retire after the National Pro Fastpitch league folded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then AUSL came about.
Romero was selected in the 12th round, 45th overall, by the Volts in the inaugural AUSL Draft, reviving her professional softball career.
“I knew it would happen,” Romero said. “I didn't know if I would still be playing when it happened. I'm just really lucky and blessed that I got to experience it. I contemplated retiring earlier on, but once the AUSL was announced and I saw who was in it and who was involved, I had to be a part of it, I had to experience it.”
The AUSL is headed for what figures to be an even bigger Year 2 with the league set to expand from four teams to six. Cascade and the Oklahoma City Spark will join the original four teams: the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts.
And Palacios, Fouts’ catcher on the Talons, emphasized that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Ng has said many times that they have been learning from the successes -- and failures -- of other women’s professional sports leagues like the WNBA, NWSL and all that have come before them.
Those leagues are much older in comparison to the AUSL, but still young compared to men’s leagues. But the hype of women’s sports over the past five years has given hope for continued growth of women’s softball at every level.
“It's gonna be a marathon,” Palacios said. “We're gonna keep running. Women's sports are on a climb. Everyone loves watching women's sports now. It really is awesome to be able to see how we're growing and how people are recognizing the talent that we bring and just like the investment that everyone's having on it. It's honestly incredible.”