will open its 2026 Athletes Unlimited Softball League coverage on June 9 with an Opening Night doubleheader on ESPN2, putting the first AUSL games of the season in front of a national audience right away. The night starts at 7 p.m. ET with the Texas Volts against the Oklahoma City Spark, then continues at 9 p.m. ET with the Chicago Bandits against the Utah Talons.
That second game gives the Talons an immediate shot at the Bandits in a rematch of the 2025 AUSL Championship, and Montana Fouts is scheduled to start for Utah after throwing a complete-game shutout against Chicago in that title game. It is the kind of opening-week setup that turns a schedule release into a target date for fans looking for the first live look at a league that is trying to stretch beyond a single market or a single night.
The opening week keeps moving fast after Tuesday. On Wednesday, June 10, the Portland Cascade play the Carolina Blaze at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2, followed by another Bandits-Talons meeting at 10 p.m. ET on ESPNU. The teams meet again Thursday, June 11, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPNU, and the weekend brings more of the same crowded calendar: the Volts face the Blaze at noon ET on on Saturday, June 13, before the Oklahoma City Spark visit Chicago for the Bandits' home opener at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
Oklahoma City's entry adds another layer to the first week. The Spark are one of two expansion teams joining the AUSL in 2026, and their early run includes a Sunday noon ET rematch with the Bandits on ESPN2. Their rookie pitchers, Maya Johnson and Peja Goold, will get a quick test against a Chicago lineup that led the AUSL across multiple offensive categories last season. The week ends Monday, June 15, with a doubleheader on ESPN2: Volts-Blaze at 7 p.m. ET and Cascade-Talons at 9:30 p.m. ET.
The broadcast push is broader than the opening week alone. says it will carry all 51 AUSL games across its platforms in more than 50 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada and Australia and New Zealand, while 11 regular-season games will air on Deportes and the AUSL Championship will be shown on ABC. For the Talons, the immediate rematch with Chicago is the first proof that a title defense can be measured in a matter of days, not months. For, June 9 is the first chance to show whether the league's second season can travel the way the schedule suggests it should.
