The Math Behind The National Sports League Owned By Wall Street

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Friends,

In late 2018 Paul Rabil announced, via The Player’s Tribune, the creation of a new professional lacrosse league - the Premier Lacrosse League, or PLL.

How did we get here?

Professional lacrosse has always been a grind. Imagine dedicating the amount of time necessary to excel at your sport professionally but still having to work 9-5 in order to pay rent. That’s the challenge most aspiring professional lacrosse players deal with.

Paul Rabil, the most recognizable name in lacrosse, perfectly summarized the challenges he faced when transiting from college to a professional career.

In this article, Rabil talks through how he became interested in the sport, his illustrious college career, the challenges professional lacrosse players face financially, and how the PLL intends to transform the sport.

Why Does It Matter?

Traditionally, if a player wanted to continue his post-collegiate lacrosse career his best option was Major League Lacrosse (MLL). Founded in 1999 as a “semi-professional” league, MLL players earn annual salaries of $10,000 to $25,000. Players and staff generally hold other jobs and the league does not provide health insurance coverage. Growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of support, Paul Rabil and his brother Mike decided to shake things up.

Enter the Premier Lacrosse League, or PLL, a 7 team league that plays a tour-based schedule in 12 major-market cities across the US. When it comes to why Rabil started the PLL, i’ll let him do the talking.

What’s Different This Time?

The biggest difference between the PLL and MLL? The PLL was able to secure major investors, private equity funding, and lucrative media partnerships before ever playing a game. This enabled the league to guarantee players higher annual salaries, health insurance coverage, and equity ownership in the league. Below is a list of the key differences between the newly established PLL and the MLL (Source):

• The PLL pays players an average salary of $35,000, compared to their MLL counterparts which receive salaries in the $10,000 to $25,000 range.

• Unlike any other sports league, the PLL offers it’s players equity ownership in the league.

• All PLL players are given health care coverage.

• The PLL operates as a single-entity operation, allowing it to control all seven clubs, their players, and business operations. 

• The PLL operates a tour-based schedule where teams converge on a US city for a tournament style weekend, while the MLL has teams located in various cities across the country which play a more traditional home & away schedule.

The Growth Gameplan

Since inception, the PLL has been aggressively signing sponsorship agreements with companies like Gatorade, Adidas, and naming rights sponsor Ticketmaster. Among traditional sponsorship agreements, the PLL has also signed an exclusive media rights deal with NBC and, more recently, an official sports betting partnership with DraftKings (Source).

NBC Changes The Game

Like most professional sports, media contracts reign supreme. In October 2018, NBC signed an exclusive deal with the PLL to broadcast the league’s 14-week season on its cable networks. As part of the broadcast deal, NBC Sports introduced the Premier Lacrosse League Pass, a direct-to-consumer live streaming product. At an initial price of $37.99, it offered access to all 39 games, including 20 exclusively for subscribers. It’s been reported that NBC surpassed their “PLL Pass'“ projections in week one (Source).

NBC also changed the way lacrosse games were broadcasted - Removing the wide angled cameras, NBC introduced yellow balls (instead of white) so fans could follow along easier and started interviewing players intra-game to add excitement.

DraftKings Does A Trial Run

Yesterday DraftKings announced they will be the “Official Sports Betting Partner” of the PLL Championship series, with optionality to extend the agreement into next season. The financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, and honestly probably aren’t super impressive considering the deal only runs through the PLL Championship series. The key will be to see if DraftKings extends their partnership for the 2021 season, which would be a much more lucrative offer for the PLL.

The Road Ahead

With the MLL going through a contractionary phase and league-wide attendance in a free fall, the PLL has timed their launch perfectly. Look at the decline in MLL attendance since it’s peak in 2011:

Ultimately it will come down to the PLL’s ability to attract fans and scale revenue before their private equity partners come calling. It’s going to take a few years to determine the survival (or failure) of the league but with existing NBC and DraftKings partnerships, they are off to a strong start.

If you’re interested in seeing what the PLL is all about, or simply just miss live sports, the PLL Championship Series - a 2 week quarantined tournament begins July 25th on NBC Sports.

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