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| MLL Commissioner David Gross |
Since his elevation from COO to the office of Commissioner of Major League Lacrosse (MLL) in July '04,
DAVID GROSS has seen an increased awareness of the sport as well as appreciable gains in MLL attendance and sponsorship revenue. The league, which started in '01 with six teams, begins its eighth season on Saturday with 10 teams. Dick's Sporting Goods joins a sponsor roster that includes Bud Light, New Balance, Warrior Lacrosse, Brine Lacrosse, the U.S. Marines, Gatorade, Cascade Lacrosse and Body by Jake. Broadcast partner ESPN extended its relationship with MLL through 2016. Gross spoke optimistically about the growth and the future of lacrosse with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief
Jerry Kavanagh on the eve of the new season.
Favorite vacation spot: Cape Cod.
Favorite piece of music: Very eclectic tastes -- no favorites.
Favorite book: "The Devil's Alternative," by
FREDERICK FORSYTH.
Favorite quote: So many
BEN FRANKLIN quotes I love.
Favorite movie: "The Godfather."
Favorite athlete:
TOM BRADY.
Pet peeve: People who are late and who don't return phone calls.
Last book read: "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court," by
JEFFREY TOOBIN and "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," by
ALAN GREENSPAN.
Typical start to the business day: In the office between 7:30-8:00am to get things done before it gets too hectic.
Basic management philosophy: Have the best people you can around you and give them the opportunity to shine.
Most important lesson learned on the job: Be patient is probably No. 1. And make sure that you're communicating everything that you're thinking to people. Communication is just such a vital aspect in any business.
Earliest sports memory: Going to the old Boston Garden to watch
BOBBY ORR and the big, bad Bruins when I was five years old.
Q: What do you know now that would have been most helpful to you earlier in your career?
Gross: That's a great question. Never assume what somebody is thinking. Take the time to figure out what someone is thinking, what motivates somebody and what someone desires.
Q: Lacrosse is the oldest sport in America. Why has it taken so long to catch on with the majority of the nation's sports fans?
Gross: The game's roots, as you know, came from the native Americans and then got adopted, really, by the prep schools and found hotbeds in Baltimore, Long Island and upstate New York. It took the last 20 years for it to spread as a prep school sport into mainstream. And now that it has, you've got kids seeing the game and having a burning desire to get started playing. I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg of where the game's going to go in terms of participants.
Q: Have you had to battle misperceptions about lacrosse?
Gross: People come up to us and say, "Oh, isn't that just a prep school sport?" That's not the case. It just happened that [the prep schools] really got behind it.
Q: It's not an elite sport.
Gross: Take a look now. Anyone and everyone is playing lacrosse. There are more and more inner-city programs springing up as well. For the most part, it's just educating people that, hey, it's a great game. Just give it a try. Our history has shown that if you see it, you'll like it.
Q: According to surveys taken by the National Federation of High School Associations, the number of high school participants has tripled since '93-94.
Gross: Yeah, and those numbers just keep growing. I know the total number of participants now playing lacrosse at some level is about 450,000.
Q: As more kids discover the sport at the grassroots level, do you expect them to stick with lacrosse rather than go into more traditional sports?
Gross: You know, it's addictive, the sport of lacrosse. Once you start playing, you always want to play. We're seeing kids start younger and younger. When I was growing up, there wasn't any youth lacrosse here in Massachusetts. And then you had a U-15 and a U-13 league start up in the early '90s. Now there are U-9 and U-7 programs. Lacrosse has all the elements that participants and fans enjoy. It's fast-paced and hard-hitting with lots of action.
Q: How do you compete with baseball, which has had such a head start, for fans' attention in the spring?
Gross: I'll be honest: We don't really view baseball or other sports as our main competition. We view any form of entertainment as our competition. It's the movies, it's vacations, it's staying at home with all the possibilities people have.
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Gross Says Garber's Advice Has
Been Helpful To MLL Growth |
Q: What have you learned from other pro league start-ups? Do you take any best practices from other leagues?
Gross: We're a sponge when it comes to that stuff. We want to pay attention to what everyone else has done and is doing. DON GARBER at MLS has been very helpful. Every young league has its growing pains. If you speak to somebody and say, "This is what we're going through," they'll say, "Yep. We were there exactly the same way." And then we get suggestions. Where that fits in our business, we try to follow those suggestions.
Q: Is there a parallel for MLL with MLS as far as development, participation and awareness?
Gross: Very similar type of approach we're taking to marketing. They've done a great job of making their league relevant. They've had a big boom in the last few years. One difference is, we don't have the international aspect of the sport that soccer has. So, we really do have to just grow it primarily using our assets from the U.S.
Q: You have said, "We saw how quickly the WUSA and XFL flamed out, and that really shaped the way we've run this league. We know we are going to make mistakes, but we've tried to make sure they are small mistakes that don't wipe us out." What's the biggest mistake MLL could make right now?
Gross: Expanding too fast. We have to make sure that our current 10 teams are as healthy as possible before we start adding more teams. It's difficult when so many people are calling, looking, you know, to buy teams for various parts of the country. You really need to show restraint and do the proper due diligence to make sure that we are bringing in the best ownership groups, that we are going to be playing at quality venues and that we're in markets that are going to be successful for our teams to succeed.
Q: On that same note, you said MLL is "a league that's known its limitations from the start and never tried to be anything it wasn't. ... All it takes is time to get people exposed to the product and to get on board." It's been a patient approach. Is there a danger of going too slowly, or too fast?
Gross: I think we're having measured growth each year with our business. What we don't want to do is all of a sudden try to be too much, try to burn through too much cash to make a splash if there's nothing to back it up. We want to build something that's going to be long lasting. No sports league has really just popped on the scene and taken off. I believe even the NBA in their first 10 years were only averaging about 4,000 fans a game. And that was in a much less cluttered landscape. We're still educating people on the game of lacrosse. We get about 4,400 fans at each game and we want to continue to build that and make this a major sport.
Q: Do you sense any impatience, from owners, players, partners?
Gross: No. We've explained the vision, and everyone has bought in to what it's going to take to make this successful. I'll add another group: the fans. They understand that as well. Our sponsor partners have been very supportive. Our ownership groups understand what we're trying to do. The players get it. They are our greatest asset and the best ambassadors we have.
Q: The league is starting its eighth season. When do you expect to see a profit?
Gross: We have a couple of teams that are already profitable -- not by much.
It's not so much, "When are you going to be making money," because the focus is really on ... as we're starting to get cash-flow positive, let's invest more money to then fuel the next growth. As we keep getting closer, we keep then adding what we're spending. So, while we want to be profitable and we're not far from being profitable, it's not the main focus right now.
Q: Any areas of untapped revenue you're looking at?
Gross: As we grow, licensed merchandise and licensing in general should increase for us. With all the broadcasting we're doing, we now have a lot more platforms for our current and future partners to reach out to and really sell them a comprehensive package with the sport and not just, you know, in-stadium signage. So, we've gotten a lot of positive feedback there, and we expect those revenues to increase significantly.
Q: Talk about the broadcasting. You are in year two of your 10-year deal with ESPN.
Gross: Eleven games will be on ESPN2 in high definition. The remaining 52 games will be broadcast locally and syndicated in various places across the country. And ESPN360 will have every single MLL game online this year live. We're also adding a 30-minute magazine show that will be syndicated through regional sports networks as well as on ESPN.com. We want to focus on getting the lifestyle of the sport and letting our fans know more about the players. Any league where you have guys wearing a helmet, it takes an extra effort to get the faces seen and known.
Q: What is your biggest concern?
Gross: I guess when we look at the growth it is that the game is not growing at the Division-I men's level in college. I think there are only 57 programs. We'd love to see a lot more Division-I schools pick the sport up. That will help both the professional and the overall growth of the game.
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Growth Of Youth Lacrosse Leagues Has Yet
To Make Impact On Number Of Division-I Teams |
Q: Why is that? If participation is growing in high school, why hasn't there been a parallel growth in Division-I?
Gross: The excuse that we always hear is Title IX. Whether that's legitimate or not, that's often what were hearing from schools that have not adopted it at the D-I level. At D-III the game is growing by leaps and bounds, and on the women's side it's growing. But it has been fairly stagnant on the men's side at the Division-I level.
Q: What do you see five years from now for MLL?
Gross: I think we'll have a couple more teams. I think all of our teams will be much healthier. I think we'll start having our championship weekend become much more of a destination for sports fans to attend, and we'll continue a nice, steady flow of measured growth with expanded TV coverage.
Q: Is there room for two pro lacrosse leagues?
Gross: Two outdoor leagues? No. An indoor and an outdoor league? Yes. It's a very different game. It's almost like looking at Arena Football to the NFL. While there might be some crossover players, the styles of the games are very different.
Q: What is the dumbest and smartest money spent in sports?
Gross: I don't want to rip any other leagues!
Q: Go ahead and rip.
Gross: I think the smartest money is actually spent on the digital side in sports right now. Investing there is where so many of the fans are going to. Some of the dumbest money being spent is in trying things that have repeatedly failed but are continued to go after.
Q: Is there a particular team ownership, in any sport, you admire?
Gross: Several. Locally, where I live, the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox do things very differently but have done a tremendous job in building their brands. The current Red Sox ownership is just amazing how they have tapped every revenue source out there.
Q: JIM LEYLAND of the Detroit Tigers said that on his bucket list is to attend a Final Four, play Augusta, and go to the Kentucky Derby. What's on your bucket list?
Gross: It's a very simple list. I just want to enjoy every single day that I'm alive. I don't have any one particular event or place in the country that I have to go to. I want to do everything, but I don't want to be disappointed if I don't get it done.
