Having left MLB behind, ex-Marlins GM Kim Ng to commish new pro softball league

Kim Ng’s three decades in Major League Baseball were relentless and unprecedented. Her departure was swift and unexpected. She remains, 18 months later, a sports executive like no other, still envisioning opportunities that have never before existed.

On Wednesday, Athletes Unlimited announced that Ng, the former Miami Marlins general manager, will serve as commissioner of the upstart Athletes Unlimited Softball League, a professional circuit that held its inaugural draft in January, opens it regular season in June, and already is planning an expansion for next summer.

“You’re not going to see too many general managers make this kind of pivot,” Ng said in a phone interview. “I can’t say any of my other comrades in arms would be able to make this kind of move.”

It is, for now, a true transition for Ng, who left the Marlins in October of 2023 and said she is not actively looking for another job in Major League Baseball. She will not rule out a return in the future, but at 56 years old, her focus is back where it was at 16 — on softball.

“In terms of baseball,” Ng said. “I think if I wanted to, I could make calls and hopefully catch on with somebody — if I wanted to. I think after 30-plus years in the business, I also owe it to myself to do some things that I hadn’t necessarily had the opportunity to do in the past. And this is, for me, it’s a passion.”

Ng grew up in New York City, one of five sisters who played softball. Ng was one of three who went on to play in college. From the University of Chicago, she landed an internship with the Chicago White Sox, and from there she became a baseball trailblazer. When the New York Yankees hired her in 1998, she was, at the time, the youngest assistant general manager in the sport’s history. In 2005, she became the first woman to interview for a GM job, and in November of 2020, Ng became the first female general manager of any major professional men’s sports team in North America. Her Marlins made the playoffs three years later, their first full-season playoff appearance in two decades.

Less than two weeks later, Ng walked away.

Despite the better-than-expected 2023 season, the Marlins had not offered Ng a multiyear extension. They wanted to hire a president of baseball operations over her, and her vision for the future did not align with that of owner Bruce Sherman. Ng could have kept the GM title and stayed with the Marlins in hopes of a better opportunity the next offseason, but she declined her side of a mutual option for 2024. The ’24 Marlins wound up losing 100 games.

“I didn’t have any other opportunities on my mind,” Ng said. “It was really just about what I felt I had done and thinking that I didn’t need to stay. Once you get comfortable with it, you take all of what comes with that decision. For me, it was a lot of freedom to now pursue whatever I wanted. So, here I am.”

By chance, she met an Athletes Unlimited executive at a Women’s History Month event with then-vice president Kamala Harris, and three months later, in the summer of 2024, she joined Athletes Unlimited as an advisor for the development of a softball league. She is now the league’s commissioner.

An advisory role suggested wiggle room to explore other opportunities. A commissioner title suggests a true commitment to the project.

“I’m not sure it would be quite fair to Athletes Unlimited if I was out there actively searching,” Ng said. “I think where I am is, I have my eye on the ball to progress this sport forward. And that’s the way I’ve always approached my job.”

The moment is right, Ng believes, for softball to take a step forward in the American sports landscape. She sees evidence in the viewership and attendance data from the College World Series. She sees it in reports of growing participation among young girls across the country. She sees it in Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady signing a million-dollar NIL deal, and she sees it in Tennessee flamethrower Karlyn Pickens throwing the fastest pitch in recorded NCAA history. She sees it all in the context of women’s sports in general receiving more attention than in the past, and with an eye toward softball returning to the Olympics in 2028.

KARLYN PICKENS SETS THE RECORD FOR THE FASTEST PITCH IN COLLEGE SOFTBALL HISTORY 🔥🤯 78.2 MPH#NCAASoftball x 🎥 SECN / @Vol_Softball pic.twitter.com/nYa9OnxRcV

— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) March 25, 2025

“I think it all adds up to this being a great foundation for pro softball to jump on the scene,” Ng said.

Athletes Unlimited was founded in 2020 and has previously launched women’s softball, volleyball, basketball and lacrosse leagues with unusual structures that award individuals within team competition. Rosters change regularly. Teams are untethered. The focus is on individual players and competition.

The AUSL is more like a standard professional league with set teams chasing a collective championship. The league already announced managers, general managers and advisors for the upcoming season, and the list includes some of the biggest names in the sport’s history — Lisa Fernandez, Jennie Finch, Jessica Mendoza, Cat Osterman, Natasha Watley — presenting a united front pushing for this league’s success. The AUSL will open as a 2025 tour, with each team playing 24 games in 12 different cities, and ESPN broadcasting 33 of the games across various platforms. The league plans to expand to six teams and give each a home city in 2026. It’s using this season as a testing ground for the various markets to determine which cities are most receptive to professional softball.

“Knowing what an established, mature system of governance looks like, I think will be really helpful in establishing this league,” Ng said.

It’s perspective and insight few others would bring to such a project.

“I’m not sure people would have made the move I did with the Marlins, either,” Ng said. “So, I’m not really about convention. Never have been. Never will be.”

For another baseball job to pull her away, Ng said, it would have to be the right situation, whatever that might be. Her sudden departure did not leave Ng with a sense of unfinished business, or something left to prove.

“We made the playoffs,” Ng said. “That’s the part that I take away from it is that we made the playoffs. People didn’t think we could do it, and we did it.”

If 2023 was her last season as a baseball general manager, there are worse ways to go out than with the fourth-most wins in franchise history.

“So, in terms of naysayers, I feel like I was able to prove them wrong — we were able to prove them wrong,” Ng said. “So, I know it’s not necessarily satisfying for some people, but I think from my perspective, when I had the opportunity, I did what I thought we were capable of doing. Would I have liked to have continued on and gotten to the end of October? Of course.

“But I’m happy where I am now.”

(Photo: Rob Tringali / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

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