‘This is the future of our sport’
Venture that treats pro sports like a fantasy league ends softball season in Rosemont
An intriguing professional sports experiment ended in Rosemont on Monday night when Team Osterman, a softball squad named after its captain, Olympic gold medalist Cat Osterman, won its final game.
But victory wasn’t really the point. Points were the point.
The six-week league was launched by Athletes Unlimited, a fledgling outfit that treats professional sports like a fantasy league. Players receive points not just for winning games but for performing well individually.
Hit a single, get 10 points. Stretch it into a double, get 20. Knock it over the fence and receive a cool 40 points.
Pitchers, meanwhile, get 4 points for every out but have 10 points taken away for every earned run. Winning an inning yields 10 points for every member of the team. Winning the game brings 50.
Earning one of three Most Valuable Player spots voted on by players and fans after each game is worth up to 60 points.
The result was a leader board in which the order of 57 players — all of whom switched teams every week — could change with every pitch. The higher they finished at the end of the season, the larger their portion of a $300,000 bonus pool.
“I think that’s what fans want,” said Athletes Unlimited co-founder Jon Patricof. “Fans want interactivity. Fans want to know that every moment counts.”
The organization began when Patricof, looking for a way to stay in pro sports after leaving his job as president of Major League Soccer’s New York City Football Club, decided the normal way of doing business was ripe for disruption.
“Fans of the future are really focused on individual athletes,” he said. “People are having less and less allegiance to the city where they were born or living, and people are moving so much more. A (geographically dispersed) league can work, but if you’re starting something from scratch, really leaning into the athletes themselves made a lot more sense.”
He and investor Jonathan Soros, son of billionaire George Soros, saw opportunity in women’s sports, especially softball.
ESPN broadcasts hundreds of college games every year to good ratings, Patricof said. That demonstrated a demand he thought wasn’t being fully met, despite the existence of National Pro Fastpitch, a five-team league.
Rosemont is home to one of those teams, the Chicago Bandits. Once Patricof and Soros decided on the sport, the village, home to a purpose-built pro softball stadium, became a natural choice for the venue.
Abby Ramirez, a middle infielder from Chicago who plays for the Bandits, heard about the league from teammates early in the year and was intrigued.
“It was a little bit different, but I was just super excited that it would be another opportunity for us to play,” she said.
The season was set to start in August, right after National Pro Fastpitch and the 2020 Olympics concluded. But when both were shut down by COVID-19, Athletes Unlimited suddenly became the only place to play.
That drew a surge of big-name athletes, including Osterman, who had been planning to retire after the Olympics.
But it also meant the league had to create its own version of a bubble — Athletes Unlimited calls it a “shield” — to keep players safe from the virus.
They were housed in Rosemont apartments and hotel rooms and allowed to move only among their lodgings, the stadium and the adjacent practice dome. They received weekly food boxes and ordered in everything else they needed.
Off the field, Athletes Unlimited offered the players activities ranging from movie nights to group discussions to leadership training from Abby Wambach, the women’s soccer hall of famer.
“There have just been so many other events,” outfielder Jazmyn Jackson said before the final round of games. “There’s always something to do.”
The teams formed anew each week when four team captains drafted their colleagues into their squads. It was akin to choosing sides for a pickup game, an experience many hadn’t been through since they were kids.
Unlike the politics of the playground, Osterman said it was strictly business.
“I definitely don’t go based off friendships,” she said. “I go off performance, energy and the vibes people give off. We want a good culture and a good mesh of players. I’m not always looking at the board and thinking, ‘This person is good friends with me.’ I’m going to put that aside and put together a solid overall team.”
She chose wisely. In the final week of play, her team slipped past a squad captained by Erika Piancastelli, then battered Aleshia Ocasio’s squad 15-2.
By the time her team entered the season’s final game Monday night, Osterman had a massive 338point lead over her closest rival, infielder Jessica Warren. Osterman, who as captain controlled the lineup, left herself out and the squad rewarded her confidence by thrashing Warren’s team 18-3.
That sealed Osterman’s victory, and after the game, her name was ceremonially inscribed as the champion in a book that will travel to Nashville, Tennessee, where a season of women’s volleyball — the next sport in Athletes Unlimited’s expanding dossier — will begin in February.
But her win felt like a sidelight as the players mingled on the field, dancing, hugging and giving heartfelt speeches before a TV audience on CBS Sports Network (Rosemont allowed fans to be in the stands, but Athletes Unlimited opted against that for safety reasons).