Update: Despite the success of A League of Their Own by all knowable metrics, and the #MoreThanFour campaign, Prime Video announced yesterday that the series will officially end after four final episodes.
Vernon Sanders, head of television, Amazon and MGM Studios, said in a press release: “We’re deeply proud of the work that Abbi, Will, the cast, and crew have done reimagining A League of Their Own which has produced an incredibly loyal fan base as well as achieved numerous, well-deserved recognitions and accolades. After hearing what Abbi, Will, and the writing team have planned for the new story within this wonderful series, we are excited for our fans to see what comes next.”
Below is our original post from March 14th, when The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news, which was contradicted by co-creator Will Graham and which launched the fan campaign to save the series.
Well, a whisper of the news we’ve all been waiting for finally arrived today — and it’s not great, bob: Amazon Prime Video has renewed A League of Their Own… for a paltry four final episodes. Lesley Goldberg broke the story at The Hollywood Reporter this afternoon, noting that the announcement follows “months of renegotiations with Sony to lower the show’s licensing fee and after the cast had to sign new deals given the order is for half the episodes that were featured in season one.”
I don’t mind telling you that this news has broken the hearts of our entire team here at Autostraddle. Over the last several years, we’ve watched networks and streamers cut down gay show after gay show, with impotent excuses, but this is, by far, the most egregious cancellation. We are at a boiling point, in the United States, with anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, and not only do we know for a fact that positive representations of LGBTQ+ people open real-life hearts and minds, we also know what a huge difference nuanced, relatable stories about LGBTQ+ people mean to the community itself. Sometimes stories are the only safe place we have to land. (There’s no place like home, you know?) A League of Their Own was a triumph of actually diverse — not just the buzzword — queer storytelling, highlighting Black women, Latine women, fat women, and trans and gender nonconforming characters.
It also doesn’t make a lick of fiscal sense. Look at this chart co-creator Will Graham shared about the series’ ratings just this week:
Fascinating to see #ALeagueOfTheirOwn having highest week of online engagement 7 months after release, with no new push from @PrimeVideo. It's beautiful to see new people who continue to find the show. People should be paying attention, this isn't normal. pic.twitter.com/hop9siqHiC
— Will Graham (@WillWGraham) March 12, 2023
A League of Their Own has an astronomical 94% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It brought home trophies from the Independent Spirit Awards, GLAAD, HRC, the NAACP Image Awards, and was a Critics Choice darling. And there’s absolutely no way it cost as much to make as some of Amazon’s other shows, most of which, by the way, received WAY more support and advertising from the streamer. Also it’s AMAZON; they have more money than god.
Will Graham tweeted this after The Hollywood Reporter’s article went up.
Just to answer the questions: The stuff that came out today is a leak and it isn't official, which is why we aren't saying anything. So if you want to see more episodes or more seasons of this show, now is your moment. People are listening.
— Will Graham (@WillWGraham) March 14, 2023
We’ll absolutely be there to cheer on our faves in their final four episodes, if that’s all they really have left — but wow, way to whiff an easy home run, Prime Video.
I don’t understand what Amazon need to see in terms of statistical success of their shows in order to comission second seasons.
I thought this did really well.
i am soooooo sad
Me too, I’ve just totally lost faith in good shows being continued.
This show gave me the feels and made me genuinely happy even after the credits had rolled.
I can’t really believe it’s not getting multiple season renewal based on how popular it was.
I feel really disappointed and let down.
If we’re going out, let’s rob the fucking bank.
YES. The only thing that is helping me process this terrible decision is knowing that Autostraddle will give ALOTO the send-off it deserves.
This feels less devastating than an outright cancellation, but almost more sad, because begrudging is totally the tone. And it really doesn’t make any sense. League is so good, and so fresh/different in the media landscape. I’m so glad we’ll get to return to these characters but 4 episodes feels like an impossible writing task for a cast of this size. I’m hopeful they’ll follow Vida in pulling of an excellent (if rushed; understandably) final, curtailed season.
this keeps happening to queer shows! “sure, you can have another season, kind of, even though you’re incredibly beloved and successful” and it’s becoming more and more frustrating. the audience is here! the love is here! even if i try and set aside the queer of it all (impossible) this is such a foolish financial decision? amazon will pour money into shows no one watches or likes but not into us
What a joke really! So sorry for Will and Abbi, and everyone else fighting to get here. I hope, they can manage to wrap things up somehow. With a reduced budget and precious little time, this seems almost impossible. UGH!
I don’t know what they want to give us outright renewal anymore. Ratings? Critical reviews? Lower budgets? Nothing makes sense
This remake was actually really fucking good and stayed true to the heart of the original film. I do not understand this decision by Amazon.
Dissapointed, angry, but not surprised. It’s so weird that studios make these wildly acclaimed shows and then just drop them despite “good” viewership and ratings. Why even both in the first place? Sad for the cast and crew too, you can tell the series was made with love and it’s terrible it’s ending so soon. I hate that LGBTQ stories, especially about women, seem to get juuuuussstttt enough media representation for people to start paying attention, and then get unceremoniously swept under the rug.
Pardon my French but FUCK THIS. I’m tired of the phenomenal work of so many creators getting thrown to the dogs. It’s almost like we need to start our own streaming service.
No!! Honestly I just don’t understand what streamers want their shows to do anymore to get them renewed??
Thank you thank you thank you for this article. I share your disappointment and frustration, and love for this refreshing and wonderful show.
Happy it’s not cancelled but I gotta still say FUCK THIS
Just thinking about how a queer show can have everything – excellent reviews, low budget, a cast full of beloved actors with far reaching appeal, and none of it will be enough
But yeah please just keep giving us more seasons of the marvelous Mrs maisel
What the HELL
This show is literally perfect, and there was so MUCH story potential for all the characters!! I wanted another 3—4 full-length seasons. Four episodes is nowhere near enough. I hate this.
This is absolutely insane. Four episodes isn’t anywhere near enough to get into all those (great) storylines. I’m so tired of this.
Oops wasn’t meant to be a reply to you. Sorry!
They need to release the rights. Let Showtime pick it up or something. It’s ridiculous. A show on countless year-end best-of lists. A show with such high ratings and viewings. What else does it need? Oh yeah, an all white, hetero cast…I’m so over all this.
This is so so disappointing. At this point there is no possible metric for queer shows to meet in order to be renewed
I’d really like to see all the rich LGBT+ movie and TV stars/creators club their pennies together and make some sort of streaming service that is for our (global) community and by our (global) community. I’m sick and tired of the established services shitting on our faces time and time again (and we end up crawling back every time). We need to take control of our own narrative because it’s become abundantly clear that we cannot trust our stories with these major services, and there’s no better way than paving our own way. We can make our own rules, tell our own stories, nurture our own talent.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I couldn’t imagine Orange Is The New Black being made now, let alone lasting as long as it did! Let alone lasting more than a season! What the hell has changed in these companies since that time?!?
That’s a good point about OITNB. It does have me wondering how long it would last now.
I think what changed is the whole “there are a dozen streaming services now and nobody wants to pay for all of them.” Every media company thought they could do the same thing Netflix did, and they ended up cannibalizing each other, just with smaller and smaller catalogues and bigger and bigger budgets. Now the chickens are coming home to roast and I fully expect that many streaming services will fold, and the TV landscape will return to late 90s wasteland of medical dramas and copaganda.
Fuck this shit. I hate these corporations and their decision-makers.
Now, whose storyline will be screwed the hardest by this?
An absolutely nonsensical and, honestly, hateful decision by Amazon here. Echoing the “disappointed but not surprised” feelings. It feels like yet another gut punch in a year where people keep making it clear that they do not care about LGBTQ+ stories or our lives. But we care about each other, and I know the creative team & cast of ALOTO cares. There’s some solace in that.
So disappointed. I just hope each episode is 5 hours long!
Well this just sucks. I mean yay four episodes but boo four episodes. I wrote them and told them I’m canceling my Prime membership and the 5-addon streamers I pay for through them because of this. Of course, they don’t care but it made me feel better. I’ll just use my sister-in-law’s Prime for any shopping and get the content I want another way. The only way corporations and government understand the ramifications of their decisions is through money.
Case in point, we were going to Memphis for our vacation this year. We canceled our plans and received refunds on everything. When we requested those refunds, we told them why, the TN government. We’re going to Michigan instead, and maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of my crush Big Gretch. Lol. Instead of our Northern family coming here to FL, like they do every year for vacation, they are going to CA to Disneyland and then with us to Michigan. Money is the only thing these people understand.
Lol. Looks like I replied with my monologue to you by accident. Sorry about that. 😹😹
Okay coming back to comment AGAIN bc Will Graham, EP on ALOTO, retweeted a comment by one of the ALOTO fan campaigns on the official press release that suggests that there might be possibilities for another network to pick up the series after these 4 episodes!!!! Since the press release states the second season will be a ‘limited series’ but doesn’t use the word ‘final’ anywhere. So perhaps either Amazon could order more episodes down the line or another network could pick it up?? Maybe there is hope!!!!
I’d rather they cancel the show outright than give us pity scraps. I know the cast and crew will try their damnest to give us the best last 4 episodes they can but it’s still going to suffer under the constraints. Whatever they decide, someone’s storyline(s) and character development is going to get screwed over and the audience will be left unsatisfied.
This is why I don’t get invested in shows nowadays anymore – they keep canceling them left and right. ALOTO was so well received and people *raved* about it when it premiered so what exactly is Amazon and Sony’s problem? There’s so much trash content lobbed at us with no TV nutritional value whatsoever and yet those shows seem to go on for eons but shows like ALOTO gets the axe when it’s barely began to peak? Yeah, f**k all the people who were involved in this horrible decision making.