- Hannah Flippen returns to Salt Lake City with new pro team Utah Talons.
- The Talons are part of Athletes Unlimited Softball League supported by MLB.
- Salt Lake City hosts Talons' games; ESPN broadcasts 50 league games annually.
SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah softball great Hannah Flippen is coming back home to campus.
The former Pac-12 Player of the Year and three-time All-American softball player with the Utes (2014-17) will make Salt Lake City home again as part of the state's newest professional organization, the Utah Talons.
The Talons are one of six professional softball teams that were announced Tuesday as part of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League that has received Major League Baseball support to help grow the game in the United States. The remaining five teams include the Carolina Blaze, Chicago Bandits, Oklahoma City Spark, Portland Cascade and Texas Volts.
The AUSL was founded in 2025 initially as a traveling league, with Salt Lake City as host for one week from July 16-19, before setting roots in six cities across the country.
Salt Lake City, and the campus of the University of Utah, was identified as one of the permanent locations by the league for its "great sports fan avidity," AUSL Commissioner Kim Ng told KSL.com
"The University of Utah and Salt Lake made a lot of sense for us," Ng said. "No. 1, just seeing the way the fans turned out for us, that was obviously a big notion. ... We felt like this was going to be a great home for us."
The Talons will play a 24-game season, with half of those being played at home in the Dumke Family Stadium at the University of Utah, and many of the games viewed on the ESPN properties. The league has a three-year contract with the "Worldwide Leader of Sports" to broadcast 50 games per season on its ESPN platform.
"I'm not sure you can find a single person more excited than I am about AUSL coming to Salt Lake City," Utah softball head coach Amy Hogue said. "Under the leadership of Commissioner Kim Ng, Athletes Unlimited has continued to raise the standard and has become the premier professional league in our sport.
"The elite talent of AUSL, paired with the great state of Utah, will be a home run combination. I'm 100% behind this league and will do everything I can to help it thrive here for years to come."
The Dumke Family Stadium offers a unique opportunity for the AUSL, Ng said, with the field's dimensions being some of the largest in the league.
"When you look at all six teams, this one, the fences are further back than some of the others," she said. "And so I think playing in different dimensions and ballparks is really helpful in terms of how head coaches are going to think about the game, how they're going to make their rosters, and really putting out teams that represent the parks well."
That fits into Flippen's game well after totaling 30 home runs, 192 hits and a .395 career batting average over her three seasons with the Utes — to say nothing of her success as a professional, which includes being a member of Team USA.
It's all part of the plan to help enhance the already popular sport of softball that is growing year-over-year and seeing record viewership for the College World Series. But Ng, the former general manager for the Miami Marlins, sees her league as "the Major League Baseball of softball."
"I think the combination of what Athletes Unlimited has built to this point, as well as my experience in a very mature, fairly sophisticated professional sports system, I think, is a great marriage," Ng said. "And hopefully to get together, we're going to really take this sport forward."
That includes a partnership with USA Softball as the two entities work to popularize and enhance the sport en route to a 2028 team at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
"I have a pretty firm grounding with that group," Ng said of USA Softball. "I've known them over the years, and have really tried to keep an open line of communication. I think it's just so important, overall, for the growth of the sport. But I think, also, as we approach 2028 on our road to the Olympics, we have to really understand where each other is coming from, and hopefully we'll be hand in hand as we grow the sport."
The hope is that many of those athletes who will make up that 2028 Olympic team will make Salt Lake City home, or at least come through the city as part of the AUSL. But beyond that, it's an opportunity for professional softball to become an embedded sport in the United States, with Salt Lake City being one of the original members.
The league will host a Utah Talons launch party on Jan. 26 at The Depot in Salt Lake City that will be hosted by ESPN's Holly Rowe. A fan event will take place that night at Dave & Buster's (6 p.m. MST).
