Oklahoma: Home of a dynasty collegiate softball program, the Women’s College World Series, and the upcoming Olympic competition.
When Athletes Unlimited Softball League leadership began exploring permanent locations for teams, it was a must-have.
With the Oklahoma City Spark having established roots, pursuing a team in the Sooner State led to a philosophical question for the sport. Would professional softball be united?
The answer was a resounding yes as the Oklahoma City Spark and AUSL announced on Wednesday that the independent team would join the league in 2026.
AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng knew the importance of Oklahoma, and uniting with the Spark was not something the league could shy away from.
“As the league builds out a national product, it was important to have locations that are relevant across the country to the sport, foundations of the softball community,” Ng said.
The two entities were familiar before the acquisition. Spark owner Tina Floyd was present for the AUSL’s announcement in 2024. Athletes such as Jocelyn Alo, Dejah Mulipola, and Keilani Ricketts have competed for both the Spark and Athletes Unlimited. But the league and team didn’t enter formal conversations about the possibility of unification until nine months ago, when Floyd and Destinee McElroy, then general manager of the Spark, flew to New York to meet Ng and AUSL co-founders Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros.
“I believed that if we were able to figure something out with the Spark, it would be a great strategic move, as well as a signal to the greater softball community that the foundation of pro softball was getting stronger,” Ng said.
Location, Location, Location
The move to city-based teams next year is a major shift for the AUSL. The inaugural season was played in a touring model, taking competition to 12 markets across the country this past summer.
As the fledgling league heads into its second season, every location holds weight for strategic selection and growing fandom.
Oklahoma is a market saturated with softball fans, cultivated by successful collegiate programs, and it boasts the largest softball stadium in the world, with Devon Park.
Geographically, the state serves as a midway point in the country with direct flights to both the east and west coasts.
Beyond that, the Spark has garnered attention at the governmental level. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt is a staunch fan. That support extends to the state level, including proposed legislation.
Floyd spoke to legislators on Oct. 7 in a bipartisan interim study in the Senate Economic Development, Workforce, and Tourism Committee.
She explained the growth of professional softball to support amending Oklahoma Senate Bill 820, the state’s Five Major Sports Leagues Rebate Program, to create financial incentives for professional women’s sports leagues in Oklahoma.
“That’s a big piece that shows how much Oklahoma wants pro women’s sports to come here,” Floyd said. “That’s very impactful. Our state leaders want this.”
The rebate program, signed into law last year, offers qualifying teams a maximum annual rebate of $10 million. Currently, only men’s teams are eligible for the tax incentives, and the Oklahoma City Thunder is the only team that qualifies.
Chief Operating Officer of Spark Softball and former General Manager Destinee McElroy sees the potential from having worked and played in the state for years. She was a starting outfielder on the 2013 OU national championship team and an event manager with USA Softball for five years. McElroy became the Managing Director of Sports Development in 2020.
“Oklahoma State and OU Softball have created big fan bases, so people are looking for more softball once those seasons end,” McElroy said.
The market for more pro sports teams in Oklahoma is wide open.
“I think it definitely helps that there’s only one other big sports team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. So I think that not having so many options in our state helps us with the fan base and the support,” McElroy said.
Pro softball’s last frontier: this time it’s different
For much of the sport’s history at the elite level, pro softball in the United States has been unsteady.
The National Pro Fastpitch league reached peak expansion in 2006 when it had seven franchises, but mostly operated with five to six teams. Nineteen different franchises came and went during the league’s tenure before it disbanded in 2021.
AU Pro Softball emerged, operating its short season in a unique format. The Spark was briefly a member of the Women’s Professional Fastpitch (WPF) – which operated in a traditional model – before exiting to function independently, citing differences in ideologies.
“There’s always been division amongst different organizations and just too many options out there,” McElroy said. “We’re taking those initial steps to give these athletes the opportunities that everybody has worked so hard for,” she said.
McElroy’s sentiments are similar to those Jennie Finch expressed almost a year ago at the NFCA Convention. Finch, Lisa Fernandez, Cat Osterman, and Natasha Watley all sat on stage advocating for the AUSL to college coaches, players, and media.
“This is the bridge from the collegiate game to the pro space,” Finch emphasized at the December event. “I’m so thankful that there’s one engine, we’re all a part of [it] and moving forward to something that we’ve never been able to experience before.”
“This is the time you are going to get to see now the world’s best athletes on the same playing field,” Floyd said. “I think so many people just wanted to see it unite, even our athletes. Finally, the right people came together and made this work.”
For the first time, softball’s most influential were not only united but eager.
Better together
The AUSL has never been within a city year-round, building a local business around a team and creating long-term community presence.
“That is new for us, but where I think Spark will be particularly useful is helping us to expedite that learning curve,” Ng said.
The league’s commissioner plans to lean into the Spark as a sounding board of people who have found success in ticket sales, community events, and local partnerships.
“I think it speaks volumes about the way that we’re going about our business. We know that we have to rely on others to make sure that [teams] ramp up as quickly as we can.”
Take the Spark’s connection between camps and fandom, for example. The team structured a catching clinic around four-time OU National Champion Kinzie Hansen for players from 6 to 18 years old. The camp package included a complimentary ticket to any game during the 2025 season, a Spark t-shirt, and an autograph session.
“To cement that adoration of a kid’s role model, I think it’s kind of epic,” Ng said. “If you’re able to do that, create that in your market and bring a role model to the young players, I think that you’ve created a life-long fan.”
McElroy was involved with camps and clinics for years. Through her work with Major League Baseball, she developed a viewpoint that kids want proximity and interaction with the athletes above all else – even instruction.
That philosophy influences the Spark clinics to be smaller, more intimate experiences.
“When we have our camps… we try not to have 150 kids when you only get two hours with Kenzie Hansen or Jayda Coleman,” McElroy said. “We want to see the actual impact that the professional player is having on the kid because I think that is what really lasts a lifetime.”
While the Spark excels on the granular level, Floyd is excited about the structure and exposure that come with joining a national league with large-scale staff and resources.
She noted that playing independently has its challenges: facing the same competition repeatedly, a lack of formality, and the need for rules and regulations.
“I can’t tell you how many policies and procedures Destinee and I have had to make up just because there haven’t been any. The AUSL has created that and is on the national platform. That to me is what the Spark needs,” Floyd said.
Not to mention the AUSL’s historic broadcast deal with ESPN and the league’s ongoing partnership with Major League Baseball.
The Spark’s fan base will have potential beyond Oklahoma to a national audience.
True to Sooner spirit, Floyd and McElroy have pioneered pro softball in Oklahoma, building the Spark. Now their next frontier is an AUSL Championship.
Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on X @savannaecollins.