Score one for lacrosse

The NLL, playing its 20th season in one form or another, has caught on in a big way in many of its 11 markets, with Denver and Toronto leading the way in average attendance at better than 17,000 fans per game. Leaguewide, average attendance is about 11,000 per game and the league recently sold expansion franchises to groups in Chicago and New York for next season.

Whether played indoors in the NLL or outdoors in the separate but also growing entity of Major League Lacrosse, professional lacrosse is finding its way into the American sporting landscape with increasing gusto. More teams, more sponsors, more fans and more TV time are recurring themes from both leagues as they seek to capitalize on the sport’s increasing appeal and growth at the grassroots level.

National Lacrosse League Commissioner Jim Jennings recently found himself in a meeting with an NHL owner who wasn’t paying much attention to his sales pitch.

Calgary Roughnecks defenseman Travis Gillespie (left) guards Arizona Sting forward Dan Dawson during a National Lacrosse League matchup.

“He really wasn’t even listening to me; he was talking on the phone,” Jennings recalled of the meeting, where he hoped to persuade the owner to buy a franchise in his growing indoor professional lacrosse league.

So Jennings stopped talking and popped in a DVD of NLL highlights on a portable player. After the first crowd shot appeared, Jennings said he had the owner’s full attention.

“He said, ‘Holy shit! Look at all those people at the game!’” Jennings said.

The NLL, playing its 20th season in one form or another, has caught on in a big way in many of its 11 markets, with Denver and Toronto leading the way in average attendance at better than 17,000 fans per game. Leaguewide, average attendance is about 11,000 per game and the league recently sold expansion franchises to groups in Chicago and New York for next season.

Whether played indoors in the NLL or outdoors in the separate but also growing entity of Major League Lacrosse, professional lacrosse is finding its way into the American sporting landscape with increasing gusto. More teams, more sponsors, more fans and more TV time are recurring themes from both leagues as they seek to capitalize on the sport’s increasing appeal and growth at the grassroots level.

The MLL, launched in 2001 and played outdoors in the summer, averages a modest 4,000 fans per game, with a league-best average of 5,600 in Boston. The league will grow from six franchises to 10 this season as it heads West with new teams in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

MLL Commissioner David Gross said the number of franchises will increase to 12 in 2008 and will continue to expand with the right opportunities. Gross favors a slow, steady, grassroots approach to building the league and its fan base.

The MLL also points proudly to its list of sponsors as an indication of mainstream success. New Balance, Bud Light, Gatorade, Starbucks, Tommy Hilfiger, Warrior Lacrosse and Under Armour all have league deals.

And Gross cites the financial strength and major league reputations of two of his newest ownership groups, Broncos CEO Pat Bowlen in Denver and Anschutz Entertainment Group in Los Angeles.

“If you could sit back and pick ownership partners to have, those two would be at the top,” Gross said.

Lacrosse by the numbers A championship game record crowd of 19,432 attended last year’s National Lacrosse League finale, a Toronto Rock-Arizona Sting matchup at Air Canada Centre in Toronto. NBC’s live coverage of last year’s NLL All-Star Game earned a 0.7 rating, while the network’s NLL championship game broadcast in May generated a 0.5. This year ESPN2 will air 12 Major League Lacrosse games of the week for the fourth straight season.

NLL pursues expansion
The NLL has been around for two decades, but the league has completely revamped itself in the last five.

When Jennings — who had a background of buying, propping up and selling minor league basketball franchises — came aboard in 2000, the league was based primarily in New York and the Northeast, with franchises in Rochester, Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Toronto and Philadelphia.

Today, the league’s 11 teams have much more geographic variety, having gone West aggressively with franchises in Arizona, Colorado, Calgary, Portland, San Jose and Edmonton, while the East Division includes Rochester, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Minnesota and Toronto.

The league’s history is full of enough franchise relocations and name changes to confuse even the most avid fan, but Jennings and others believe they’ve found a successful formula. A blur of new cities and teams in a short period of time might look like an upheaval, but Jennings contends that it is organized chaos — the byproduct of a strategy to buy out previous owners and replace them with NHL owners with deeper pockets and more resources.

“Hockey is a natural fit because it only takes 45 minutes to switch from an NHL game to an NLL game,” Jennings said, adding that a venue can host an NHL game at 3:30 p.m. and an NLL game at 8 the same night.

The NLL presents itself to fans as a high-octane experience, with plenty of action.

Today, six of the 11 NLL franchises are owned by pro hockey ownership groups in their home market, five of those being NHL and one AHL in Rochester.

The league presents itself to fans as a high-octane experience, with plenty of scoring, action and hitting, and as a less costly alternative to the NBA and NHL. Ticket prices around the league average $22 and peak at $45. Players have an average salary of $12,000 per year, with a maximum in the mid-20s. The NLL encourages interaction with fans, including postgame parties and prolonged autograph sessions.

This year, Reebok signed on to become the official uniform, equipment and apparel provider to the league, bringing a mainstream brand to the game. League sources characterized the deal as a five-year, multimillion-dollar agreement.

“Reebok coming into the game is very significant for lacrosse,” said Bob Carpenter, publisher of Inside Lacrosse, which covers the pro and amateur game. “There is so much energy in the sport right now.”

Twenty years ago, Russ Cline, president of sports marketing firm RCA Group, and partner Chris Fritz started the Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League. A year later it became the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, and then became the NLL through a merger in 1998. Cline said that franchise values have soared, going for $3 million to the newest owners, up from around $250,000 in 2000.

Cline and Fritz own the Philadelphia Wings and rights to sell two future expansion franchises. Cline said existing pro sports owners are adding franchises to leverage economies of scale.

“They typically have a good lease arrangement for buildings and can extend the usage of that favorable lease if they can bring about more events,” Cline said. “If you’re an NBA team or an NHL team, you already have staff for 365 days, and you have relationships with groups that buy tickets. You also own certain ancillary rights like suites or dasher boards. When you go out to sell, you can add NLL.”

Denver is the model NLL franchise in this vein (see story, page 22). The franchise sputtered in the lacrosse hotbed of the Mid-Atlantic, leaving D.C. in 2003 — after unsuccessful stints in Baltimore and Pittsburgh — to become the Colorado Mammoth. The team has thrived under ownership by Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which operates the Pepsi Center and owns the Nuggets and Avalanche, among others.

“I don’t think it would have worked in Denver with another ownership group,” said team President and General Manager Steve Govett. “Our capitalization is huge. When you own the building, it makes it a lot easier to make deals to include concession and parking and novelties. Also, it’s an affordable ticket. Denver is an amazing sports town, and the product is unbelievable.”

The upcoming season will be a key test for Major League Lacrosse and its westward expansion.

MLL: Slow, steady growth
The upcoming MLL season, which starts in May, will be an important one for the league as it expands west and tests the waters in Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco. Those cities join existing franchises in Baltimore, Boston, Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Rochester for a league that hopes to increase national awareness without risking stability. Owners of new franchises paid $1 million each to enter the league this year, up from $600,000 paid by the league’s original six franchises.

Jake Steinfeld, creator of the Body by Jake fitness brand, founded the MLL in 2001 along with founding partners Dave Morrow of Warrior Lacrosse; Jim Davis, chairman and CEO of New Balance; and Timothy Robertson, former CEO of the Family Channel.

“Our business plan is that we run a very tight ship,” said Steinfeld, who actively promotes the league to sponsors and new ownership groups. “We have a long road ahead, but we are now in great markets with a national footprint.”

Gross said the league is still in the red but “close to break even.” He also pointed out that the MLL started the same year as the now-defunct XFL and WUSA, which lasted one and three years, respectively.

“We saw how quickly the WUSA and XFL flamed out, and that really shaped the way we’ve run this league,” Gross said. “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.”

Player salaries average $13,000 per year and ticket prices range from about $10 to $25 for single games and as little as $100 for season tickets for the 12-game season (six home dates). The league also promotes the game heavily in its communities, with each team conducting 75 youth clinics.

MLL teams play their games in small to midsize venues. Even though crowds are small, the league promotes the upscale, family-oriented and brand-loyal demographic of its fans.

New Balance, which also owns Warrior Lacrosse, is an official partner of the league and values the grassroots opportunities that the MLL provides. Last year, for example, the footwear maker said it drove “thousands” of fans to Dick’s Sporting Goods stores by providing a coupon for its 691 running shoe in fan zones in each market.

“You go to the games and you look at the consumers who are there — the age ranges and how committed they are to lacrosse — as a brand, that’s who we want to be close to,” said Christine Madigan, corporate marketing services manager for New Balance. “The sport is growing leaps and bounds, and we want to be in on the ground floor.”

Bud Light has been a partner since the league’s formation, a fact that Steinfeld points to as an official seal of professional sports legitimacy. The brand sponsors a postgame party in a hospitality area as well as “party zones” during the games.

Tim Schoen, a sports and entertainment marketing vice president with Anheuser-Busch, put lacrosse sponsorship in the same category as niche sports such as surfing, snowboarding, bass fishing, volleyball and rodeo. “We got in the sport for the base of social beer drinkers in the Northeast who play the sport,” Schoen said. “We see the trend in lacrosse as very positive and with the potential to grow from a niche sport to a mainstream sport.”

The growth of lacrosse has encouraged more sponsors to activate at the league or team level.

TV coverage
In terms of TV coverage, the MLL has a deal with ESPN2, which airs a game of the week on Tuesday afternoons during the summer. ESPN does not pay a rights fee to the league, but MLL doesn’t have to pay for the time, either. The league gets 15 minutes of ad time per game for its sponsors and control over signage that appears on the air. Gross said he hopes for a better time slot in the future.

TV coverage of the NLL is syndicated and piecemealed in various markets with a series of revenue-sharing deals with regional cable networks. Most games appear at 9 p.m. Wednesdays, tape delayed from the weekend. The NLL also has an agreement with Rogers SportsNet in Canada, which airs 25 games live nationally.

Last year the NLL paid to air its all-star and championship games on NBC. This year, the all-star game will air on regional cable and the championship game will appear on ESPN2, via a time buy, at 6 p.m. on May 13.

“Our model is going to consist of paying to go on the air, similar to the Professional Bull Riders, who have been very successful at getting on TV and selling sponsorship,” Jennings said. “Our goal for next season is to get a game of the week on a large cable network.”

Also this year, the NLL launched LacrosseTV in partnership with Interactive Television Networks. To get the channel, which broadcasts NLL games and other lacrosse content such as archived league games and college games, viewers must connect to a set-top ITVN box ($99.95) and pay a $9.95 monthly fee (though a current promotion provides the box for free with a year’s subscription to LacrosseTV). Jennings estimated current subscribers at 8,000.

The MLL has no plans to put its games on LacrosseTV and founder Steinfeld said, “It’s two very different leagues with two very different mind-sets.”

Regardless, both showcase a game that proponents believe will only grow, driven by new franchises and increasing youth participation.

“The most important thing is the growth of the game from youth, to college, to the pro level,” said David Kotowski, president of the Long Island Lizards of the MLL. “Young players now have the ability to dream to play in a pro league and have heroes to look up to. That’s huge for our sport.”

Greg Abel is a writer in Baltimore.