$100 Million Growth Capital Raise Sets Stage for PLL to Capitalize on LA28, Pursue Franchise Sales
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$100 Million Growth Capital Raise Sets Stage for PLL to Capitalize on LA28, Pursue Franchise SalesThe Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) recently announced the closing of a $100 million Series E financing round led by Ares and Joe Tsai. ESPN, Creator Sports Capital, Glen Powell, and Rob Mac (formerly McElhenney) are among those who invested alongside.
PLL leadership recognized there were opportunities to capitalize on its recent momentum (see: the growing core business, the successful integration of a prominent youth sports business, the signing of new five-year media rights deals for PLL and WLL with ESPN) and position its two leagues to take advantage of the spotlight LA28 will place on the sport. The upcoming Olympic cycle is considered internally one of the most important periods in the organization’s history.
“We have a chance to introduce the sport to a new generation of fans and athletes around the world,” Mike Rabil (co-founder and CEO, Premier Lacrosse League) said.
Lacrosse has not appeared in the Games as a medal sport since 1908.
But “all of those initiatives required growth capital,” Mike Rabil added.
So, it went out and executed the largest capital raise in the history of professional lax.
“We now have a good platform to continue to build off of,” Mike Rabil said. “The timing was right and the investment dollars will be used to fuel our growth.”
The bet is the entity can harness modern media distribution and an integrated ownership structure to build a top-tier property.
“Investing in the PLL and WLL means backing a property of a global discipline at [its] earliest stage, one whose rise is accelerated with the evolution of new media, and in doing so, owning a piece of the rare power sports have to command monolithic consumption operate commercially, and build real community and unity,” Paul Rabil (co-founder and president, Premier Lacrosse League) said.
The influx of capital will enable PLL to invest in four core areas.
The first is the continued development of its men’s league, and that starts with expanding the season into spring. Historically, the PLL schedule ran June through early September to avoid overlapping with the high school and collegiate lacrosse seasons.
“But summer is difficult. People travel, particularly between June and early July for club lacrosse. So, a lot of our core demo just isn’t in the markets when we're there,” Mike Rabil said. “We also need to, from a tonnage perspective, create more games. More inventory means more revenue.”
The alternative is to expand into the fall. But television windows are harder to come by post-Labor Day and competing for viewer attention with the NFL and college football is a losing proposition.
The second is in developing its newly launched Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL).
“We’re excited about that property. We think it’s undervalued in our current valuation,” Mike Rabil said.
That is partly a function of the timing. The four-team league had yet to debut when the round closed earlier this year.
“WLL didn’t have any metrics to be evaluated on. No one had seen the product on TV yet,” Mike Rabil said.
The league has since begun to establish a track record. WLL All-Star Game viewership on ESPN2 increased 72% YoY, while Lexus, U.S. Bank, IBM and Cash App have all signed on as partners since its launch.
Third is in its critically important youth sports business (think: camps, clinics, rec leagues, tournaments). PLL acquired Summit Lacrosse Ventures, owner of the Lake Placid Summer Classic, in 2024. Summit leadership now runs PLL Play and continues to operate its tournaments.
“We want to continue to lower the barriers to entry, drive participation, and if we do that, we have a pretty good, systematized way to turn that engagement into PLL or WLL fandom,” Mike Rabil said. “30% of PLL Play participants, whether they went to a camp, clinic, or tournament, are now either buying, watching, or attending PLL games.”
And fourth is in developing a media operation capable of expanding its content creation and distribution capabilities (think: writers, editors, videographers). PLL acquired The Lacrosse Network in 2020 and continues to evaluate other potentially strategic properties.
“Building content around our players and leagues, some scripted, some unscripted, is necessary,” Mike Rabil said. There’s a need for casual fans to understand “why they have to watch games and why they have to be there in person, but it requires storytelling.”
LA28 is expected to be a watershed moment for lacrosse, and for PLL and WLL if they are prepared to capitalize, for a pair of reasons.
“One, having the largest global audience on the game should help to create more recognizable stars,” Mike Rabil said.
Players from both domestic pro leagues will play for their respective National Teams.
“And then two, the investments that will be made, from the national teams all the way down through the youth ecosystems, in preparing to try and qualify for the Olympics,” Mike Rabil said. Those dollars “will grow participation, and participation leads to fandom.”
PLL’s goal over the next two years is to begin narrowing its losses.
“The other thing that we are focused on are audience engagement metrics,” Mike Rabil said. “We really try to move fans further down the funnel to become PLL Nation members, which they qualify for if they engage with the product at least once every month” (think: logging into the app, buying a ticket, buying merchandise).
The key to doing that successfully is delivering true value to those avid fans. PLL Nation members receive exclusive in-stadium experiences.
Of course, engagement and revenue go hand-in-hand. A more invested audience will attend more events and spend more while they are there.
PLL’s largest and most profitable revenue stream is currently partnerships.
“We have a relatively big sponsorship business. That is a byproduct of us being wholly owned,” Mike Rabil said. “Advertisers can access, in a very easy way, any asset they want within our league; that includes everything from spots and dots on ABC, all the way to a jersey patch on one of our youth jerseys or signage at a specific tournament.”
PLL pre-buys and subsequently sells all its television advertising inventory to facilitate that kind of one-stop shopping experience.
Media, which includes rights-related revenue as well as income generated by the leagues’ digital media efforts, ranks second. That is followed by its youth initiatives, ticketing business, and merchandise sales.
Ticketing revenue appears to be approaching its ceiling under the existing tour model.
“That is one of the reasons we like the idea of going local eventually,” Mike Rabil said. The other is “we hear that fans want us to be in their markets more and that they're having a hard time identifying with an individual club. So, we think there's a huge unlock when we go into markets permanently.”
Not every city with a team today is assured of keeping it when that next phase arrives. Historic attendance will play a role in the decision-making process.
“We find the non-traditional markets crush it for us, and the traditional lacrosse hotbeds are a little bit harder to generate fan interest in,” Mike Rabil said.
Perhaps the best reason for fans in underperforming markets, like New York, to believe their club could remain in the area long-term is that the league has visions of expanding beyond eight teams.
While PLL’s CEO was careful not to rule out the possibility of raising another round, it sounds as if future funding is more likely to come from the sale of individual franchises.
“We haven't firmly made that decision, but we're working in that direction,” Mike Rabil said.
A post-LA28 process appears to be the most likely scenario. There are still several critical decisions with long-term implications to be made across sponsorship, ticketing, league operations, governance, legal structure, and tax planning before sales can commence.
However, with PLL now well-capitalized, it can focus on spending the next two years closing in on break-even and positioning its two leagues to capitalize on the Olympic spotlight.
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