Major League Lacrosse on Friday announced the Atlanta Blaze as "the league’s newest franchise," and the expansion team set to begin play in the '16 season will "become the MLL’s ninth team," according to Stan Awtrey of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. The announcement came one day prior to the MLL championship game at Kennesaw State Univ.’s Fifth Third Bank Stadium. The Majority Owner of the Blaze will be Peter Trematerra, "a custom home builder and developer from Gainesville, Fla." The team President "will be Kevin O’Leary, a longtime referee and former college coach." The organization "is looking for a potential Atlanta-based minority owner." O’Leary said that a reasonable attendance goal for the first year "is 4,000 per game, although he acknowledged that figure may be on the low side." The Blaze "becomes the second professional lacrosse team to join the Atlanta landscape this year," after the National Lacrosse League’s Minnesota Swarm announced a move to Gwinnett County (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 8/8). O'Leary said of making the announcement on Friday instead of during MLL's July All-Star weekend as originally planned, "I thought we would get more bang for the buck if we had it around this championship game when the whole lacrosse world is here. I just thought if we did it on July 8 it would have been in the news cycle for a day and gone." He said of whether the Blaze and Swarm will have a relationship and whether they can co-exist, "I do. I very much do. They’re good people. They are working hard at what they do and we are going to work hard at what we do. ... We’ll support them, hopefully they’ll support us and we’ll march on from there" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 8/7).
