The National Lacrosse League on Thursday announced longtime soccer exec Nick Sakiewicz has been appointed league commissioner. Sakiewicz brings over two decades of experience working in MLS after joining the league in '95 as an original founding exec (NLL). Sakiewicz "will replace George Daniel, who resigned to start a new law firm while remaining as Counsel to the league." In Buffalo, Budd Bailey noted Sakiewicz indicated that he "plans to focus on expansion to increase the size of the league, a better video digital platform, grass roots participation, and an improved television situation" (BUFFALONEWS.com, 1/7). LACROSSE magazine's Neil Stevens noted Sakiewicz is "taking a job outside soccer for his first time in 21 years as a sports executive." The NLL now has nine teams, and Sakiewicz said, "I've got my eye set on getting to 16 as soon as we possibly can." Stevens noted "off-season buzz" had at least two new franchises "entering the league" for the '17 season. Sakiewicz: "We have some markets currently identified that we're going to work on." However, he "would not name cities." Stevens noted Sakiewicz' non-lacrosse background "might be a valuable asset." He said, "I'll have an out-of-the-box perspective ... and I think we're going to need that. ... The NLL reminds me so much of where we were in the MLS 20 years ago." NLL BOD Chair Steve Govett said that 150 candidates "were vetted over the last seven months" (LAXMAGAZINE.com, 1/7).
MONEY MATTERS: Sakiewicz on Thursday addressed plans to increase revenue for the league, saying, "First and foremost, we need more teams in the league. Expansion is going to be a high focus area." He added "We need a digital platform. We need a better website that is going to ... engage the fans, media and our broadcast partners in a better way. We need a database. After 30 years, we don’t have much of a database for lacrosse fans, so we need to build that. Those are assets that you can monetize with marketing partners and broadcast partners, so we are going to focus on that." He added the NLL will add a new "grass roots strategy." Sakiewicz: "If it’s a market without a team, we have to get the National Lacrosse League in front of them at the club level and at the grass roots level. If they’re in a market that has a National Lacrosse League team ... we have to get to the public and let them in on what a great sport this is and how dynamic it is because this sport is fun to watch." He added, "The final piece is when we build the expansion, digital platform, grass roots, we have to build a commercial business to be able to support [our] marketing partners and achieve what we want to achieve. Without those three things, we don’t have much to sell and we can’t generate revenue if you don’t have much to sell at the league level because the league doesn’t sell tickets (BIZJOURNALS.com, 1/7).
