Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse: The No-Teams Format Explained
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Athletes Unlimited (AU) was a US professional women’s lacrosse league that ran from 2021 through the summer of 2024, and its defining feature was that it had no permanent teams. Players competed for individual points, a live leaderboard ranked every athlete, and each week the top four scorers became captains and redrafted brand-new rosters. The season champion was the individual points leader — you could lose your weekly game and still win the whole thing. AU suspended its lacrosse league after 2024, so this explains a format that is currently on pause, not one you can watch live today.
What was Athletes Unlimited lacrosse?
AU launched in 2021 as part of a company that runs several women’s sports on the same player-first model. Instead of city franchises with fixed rosters, Athletes Unlimited put a single pool of professional players into a short, centralized season and let the standings reshuffle the teams every week. The later lacrosse seasons were played at USA Lacrosse Headquarters in Sparks, Maryland, over about four weeks in summer.
The point of the model was to put athletes at the center. There were no owners in the traditional sense, players sat on committees that shaped rules and operations, and the competition was built around individual accountability rather than a franchise badge.
How the individual scoring worked
This is the part that trips people up, so here it is plainly. Points came from three places:
- Team result — winning your weekly game was worth a block of points, split among that week’s teammates.
- Winning each quarter — every quarter was its own mini-contest with its own points, so a team down big could still bank points by taking the fourth.
- Individual stats — goals, assists, ground balls, caused turnovers and saves each carried point values.
Add it all up week after week and you got the leaderboard. Whoever sat on top after the final week was the champion. Because quarter and stat points were individual, a player on a team that lost three of four games could still climb the standings on personal production.
The weekly redraft
Every week, the four players highest on the leaderboard became captains. They drafted new teams from the entire player pool, so rosters were torn up and rebuilt from scratch each week. A superstar could captain one week and, after a quiet few games, get picked in a later round the next.
| Feature | How AU did it |
|---|---|
| Teams | No fixed teams; redrafted weekly |
| Captains | Top 4 leaderboard players each week |
| Champion | Individual points leader, not a team |
| Season | ~4 weeks, one venue (Maryland) |
| Scoring | Team win + quarter wins + individual stats |
| Status (2026) | Suspended after 2024 season |
The effect was a league with no lasting rivalries or chemistry — every week reset the board. Fans followed players, not teams, which was exactly the intent.
Why it mattered, and where it went
For several years AU was the main professional home for elite US women’s players, and it proved there was an audience and a broadcast product for the women’s game between college and the national team. That groundwork matters.
After the 2024 season, AU suspended its lacrosse competition. It did not disappear as a company — its softball, volleyball and basketball leagues kept running — but lacrosse went on pause. Into that space stepped the Women’s Lacrosse League, launched by the Premier Lacrosse League and built on the six-a-side Olympic format that will feature at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. So the flagship shifted from AU’s individual-scoring field game to the PLL’s team-based sixes.
If you want to see how the current women’s pro setup compares, our guide to the women’s professional lacrosse league lays out the WLL, its four teams and how pay works. And to understand the format the sport is now building around, the sixes lacrosse rules explainer is the quickest way in.
Where to watch it now
Because AU lacrosse is paused, there is no current season to stream. Archived AU games and highlights still circulate, and the model lives on in the company’s other sports if you want to see the redraft format in action. For live elite women’s lacrosse, the WLL and the international game are where the action is heading into the 2028 Olympic cycle.
Frequently asked questions
Is Athletes Unlimited lacrosse still running?+
No. Athletes Unlimited suspended its women's lacrosse league after the 2024 season, its fourth. The property is on hiatus rather than formally folded, but there is no active AU lacrosse schedule. Elite US women's players now compete mainly in the PLL-backed Women's Lacrosse League, which uses the Olympic sixes format.
How did the Athletes Unlimited draft work?+
Each week the top four players on the season leaderboard became captains and drafted new teams from the full player pool. Because the standings shifted every week, the captains changed too, so a player could be a captain one week and a late-round pick the next. It reset team chemistry constantly by design.
How do you win Athletes Unlimited lacrosse?+
You win as an individual, not a team. Players banked points for team wins, for winning each quarter, and for individual stats like goals, assists and ground balls. The champion was whoever topped the cumulative leaderboard after the four-week season, so a player on a losing weekly team could still win the title.
Where was Athletes Unlimited lacrosse played?+
The later seasons were staged at USA Lacrosse Headquarters in Sparks, Maryland, as a short, centralized summer event rather than a home-and-away league. Concentrating the season in one venue over a few weeks kept travel down and made the whole competition easy to broadcast.
What sports does Athletes Unlimited still run?+
Athletes Unlimited continues in softball, volleyball and basketball using the same individual-scoring model. Lacrosse was one of its four founding sports but is the one currently paused. The company's structure — player-driven, no fixed franchises — carries across all of them.
Did Athletes Unlimited players get paid?+
Yes, through base pay, a prize pool tied to leaderboard finish, and bonuses, rather than large guaranteed salaries. It was real professional compensation but not a full-time living wage, so most players combined it with coaching, camps and other work, the same reality across women's pro lacrosse.
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