It’s a busy time for lacrosse in North America, where one league just wrapped up its season and two leagues — including an insurgent debutant — just started theirs.
Professional lacrosse has become a more crowded space between the National Lacrosse League that plays indoors and Major League Lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League that play outdoors. While the NLL and MLL have been around for years, the PLL — co-founded by lacrosse star Paul Rabil — debuted this season backed by venture capital, an NBC Sports Group media rights deal, several recognizable players and flashy social media content.
Industry experts are split on whether there will be enough business for everybody to survive and thrive in the long term — though the NLL could be somewhat insulated because it plays indoors at a different time on the calendar and has a presence beyond the U.S. in Canada. In the short term, all sides are claiming momentum.
The Premier Lacrosse League started its inaugural season on June 1 and will be touring the U.S. while Major League Lacrosse plays its regular season.getty images
“We want both of those leagues to do very well — it doesn’t do anyone any good for lacrosse to be hurt by the two of them going at it,” said Nick Sakiewicz, commissioner of the NLL since early 2016. “But at the same time, we know our league is a very different product; the only similarity is we have a lot of our players playing in both the MLL and PLL [during the NLL offseason] and we all have a short stick and a ball.”
Sakiewicz said the 33-year-old NLL saw continued growth during its recently concluded season that ended in late May. It was the first under the league’s new media rights deal with Turner Sports and Bleacher Report Live. Sakiewicz said more than 20,000 subscribers signed up for the NLL channel on B/R Live, which cost $40 for the season in its first year. The league added Geico and Anheuser-Busch InBev brand Michelob Ultra as sponsors.
The NLL added two new franchises this past season in San Diego and Philadelphia, and is expanding next year with two new franchises on Long Island and in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Average attendance increased 6% this season to 9,683 fans per game. Aggregate attendance for all teams combined was up 28% to 958,547, a rise that could be expected with the addition of the two franchises.
Rabil’s PLL is taking a different approach to the MLL and NLL with a tour-based model like NASCAR or the UFC, instead of having home cities for its franchises. The league has started its first year with an attendance average of 11,950 over its first three weekends, according to the league. Each weekend includes three games, so that average is from the combined total of nine games. It’s also been generating solid social media engagement, with the league reporting 1.4 million interactions and 2.3 million views across all social media platforms for its third event weekend in Chicago.
The league, which is experimenting with new technology like mics embedded inside helmets to allow players to conduct in-game interviews with NBC, has averaged 263,000 viewers for its three game weekends so far, which includes two games on NBC and one on NBCSN. The two games shown so far on NBC have averaged 357,000 viewers. Rabil added that the league is about to unveil two new non-endemic sponsors.
“Our bet was that with our business, if we were to roll out a red carpet for players, elevate wages and begin to profile them as premier sports athletes in North America, and then finally broadcast their games with the right partner, the play would elevate,” Rabil said.
For the MLL, it’s going to be a season of adjustment and planning for the future after it contracted from a nine-team league to six teams, moved its season start date back from mid April to late May and raised its salary cap by 51%.
Nonetheless, Commissioner Sandy Brown said the league is off to a good start and isn’t spending time worrying about new competition, instead focusing on elevating its fan experience and raising its profile. As proof, he pointed to a 5,000-person sellout of the Boston Cannons’ first home game of the season on June 1, which came the same day the PLL was holding its inaugural event at nearby Gillette Stadium.
The league also has new media partnerships with ESPN and streaming platform Stadium. Among Brown’s top goals is to attract new investors to the league.
“We know what we have to do and I feel like we’re off to a solid start for the 2019 season,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of things this year that are new, but the changes we made are absolutely necessary for the long-term health of the league and the feedback we’ve gotten so far has been pretty positive.”
