Will the PLL Expand Teams?

Hey PLL fans, the 2024 PLL draft is on May 7th on ESPNU at 7pm Eastern. Right now 90% of fans in the PLL app have picked Brennan O'Neill to go number one. If you download the app, you can submit your draft pick and enter to win the number one draft picks official game jersey. You can get the app on Google Play Store, App Store, or go to PLL.app to download. All right, let's get into the show. What's up everyone? Welcome to episode two of one on one with Mike and Paul. This week we're remote. I'm in New York. He's in San Diego next week for episode three. We'll be together again in LA. I love getting together with my brother Mike, so I'm looking forward to this being another excuse to do that. Now, first of all, I want to thank everyone for listening last week and more importantly, giving us feedback. That's the purpose of this show to hear from you guys so we can let you in on what we're doing behind the scenes. And each week moving forward, we're going to listen to three of your voice recorded questions. You're going to send it to us via our hotline. Brett, what's the number? It is 512-9-1022-18. 1022-18. Why is that significant? PLL's birthday, October 22nd. Right. That's right. Brett, what's the email that they can leave a voice recording to? One on one's pod at premier lacrosse.com. So the question is that you guys left us last week. We're going to get to in just a moment and we're going to start every show with some news. Number one, John Hopkins Beat Maryland in the rivalry going back 130 years. First game was in 1895. I put out a tweet about how El Classico started in like 1902 or something like that. Just to give perspective, right? Mike and I love talking about whether it's in a sponsorship pitch or a best or meeting. It's like, "Hey, yes, we're entering year 6 of the PLL, but across has been around for thousands of years, dating back to its history of creation, and natively in North America too. The college game being around longer than any other team sport." So you get to celebrate that history for the Hopkins Maryland game. There was 10,500 people there. So they built it. I mean, it was the biggest crowd at home would feel since the 100 year anniversary or the 125 year anniversary. And Hopkins is back, man. So I was really pumped watching the game. But more importantly, seeing the crowds. And wasn't that the dome for Syracuse in Virginia? The crowd was incredible. Notre Dame continues to sell out our lot of stadium. The sport is doing this again. This was the vibe that we felt when we were in high school playing. The final four tenants was climbing from 30,000 to 35,000 to 40,000 to 45,000 to 50,000 to 55,000. And Quint Kessik being like, "Hey, we're going to sell out the MNT bank stadium." And then it started dipping. We're seeing a rise again, which is cool. The rise of LaCrosse is back. And you're seeing in the data that you just presented. I think we're just excited to hopefully continue to add fuel to that fire. I'm glad it's sort of expanding to a broader audience rather than just the hardcore audience LaCrosse fans, right? And so that's, to me, what I see is that you're starting to be a matriculation of casual sports fans into the sport of LaCrosse, which we need to really build this thing to where we want it to be. And so all the data you just talked about, really excited to see. And the gameplay to me, when I'm seeing these highlights, if I'm watching them on TL N, if I can't catch a game, it's insane how athletic these players are. And so no surprise to see the casual sports fan because these guys are incredibly athletic. And it's just really exciting to watch. And I loved the difference in play. It kind of reminded me that we grew up watching hoops and would often watch ACC basketball. And then there was Big Ten basketball. So there was that contrast this weekend where ACC LaCrosse, UVAQs, Big Ten LaCrosse, Maryland Hopkins, UVAQs is known for the last 30 years of playing. This high scoring must watch regular season matchup. They did it again, 18 to 17. Q set it up when he had home. Maryland Hopped, this Big Ten game was seven to five. So it's literally offense and defense and time back to our first episode of this show. We talked about rules. Rules are really meant as just guidelines. And the beauty about sport is that the players and the coaches, they do what they do best. They scheme. They're multi-dimensional and they're style of play. You have big players and even lesser known players showing up in unexpected moments. And you have just the run of play that is often unpredictable. When people have said the Maryland Hopkins game was going to be seven to five, absolutely not. Hopkins offense has been killing it this year. But that pace and those stakes led that game to a defensive outcome, which is fun to watch. And we've seen those at the PLL and then we've also seen the 18 to 17. Cuse for genie games. And you probably see that in football. Which one do you like better defensive games or offensive games? I'm partial to defense because I play defense. I play long pole. But I'm also also play defense in football. So I like to see a good defensive battle. I'm actually interested. Are you seeing more strategy coming from the coaches these days? You think the coaching is getting better, more strategic. The game plans are getting better. The pivots during the game are becoming incremental. Are you seeing that in addition to seeing how athletic these guys are? Yeah, I mean, the coaching evolves and it has to. Otherwise it becomes stagnant and defenses adjust. I'll give you an example, Seth Tierney, who we worked with at the PLL. Now the USA lacrosse head coach just announced to the national team, senior national team last week. Seth was the one who invented when I was at Hopkins, sort of the Ali Dodge pop and fade offense. And it was novel when he introduced it in 2004 and Hopkins was slain teams as a result because they'd have Connor Ford pop. He'd fade. You have Kyle Harrison draw two, either skip or pool. You'd have Adam Donnerger and Kevin Bowen fill the gaps. So that that offense dominated for 10 years and then defense is adjusted. And then you see sort of the influence of box across coming in and a lot more picking role, which is reminiscent of basketball and offense is now developing from the wing and the low wing. When I started, it was all up top and X. So I think it has to iterate. So you keep defenses on their on your toes. And then just generally understanding the way that the athleticism and the skill has changed. Our reference basketball and coach K who said that the best thing that happened to him was coaching the national team, team USA, because he got access to Kobe, Braun, Kevin Durant. And he was like, the high school kids are watching these guys right now and they're playing like them. So the overcoached offensive sets in college basketball are not going to work with the style of play that now I'm seeing on the floor. So we're going to widen out the offensive zone. We're going to play three ball. We're going to have our slasher's come through. We're not going to rely on a seven foot center. And that says a lot when you have one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history that's evolving based on the players. So to your point, as the players get more athletic and more skilled, the best coaches evolve with them. Anyway, there's competition on the field and there's also competition in the boardroom. And so one of the big news cycles last week showed that Smith entertainment, Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz, just took on the Arizona coyotes NHL team. The announcement is moving to Salt Lake City. That's important to us because the archers are in Utah. Mike, take that one away. What do you think about that announcement? I love this transaction for a lot of reasons. One, first of all, you said it, Ryan Smith, a new owner of the expansion team in Utah. He's a fan of the Utah archers. He came to our games last year wearing Utah. You become close with him. We're a big admirer of him. And so it's a great home. You've seen what he's done with the jazz. You've seen how the jazz not only perform in on the field, but also what they're doing on the sponsorship side. He's very tied into the state. He's able to work well in the community and with the local government, great owner. I also think the transaction with what Gary Vettman was able to do with the coyotes owner, Alex Morello, was actually really amicable. Oftentimes when a franchise leaves a city, it's not amicable. Look at the NFL with the Rams and what happened. You know, moving the amount of St. Louis to Los Angeles and the penalty that was had to be paid back to the city of St. Louis. This one was really about the real estate, which we talked about last week. The coyotes were playing at Arizona State's Mullet Arena, which is only 5,000 people, but they just really needed for it to be to an NHL standard, which was higher, and they couldn't figure that out. So, even though this franchise left Arizona, the coyotes owner is still maintaining the status of the intellectual property. Instead of it going non-existent, it's just inactive. And so he gets a five-year window to build a new arena in the Phoenix market. And then if he succeeds, the coyotes will be. reborn as the new expansion team for the NHL. So to me, this is really exciting, really great deal making by the NHL, by their front office, and in great cooperation that puts a new team in a great owner's hands, and then also allows Amarillo to figure out the real estate solution, which is a big part of finding a great home from a long-term perspective for the fans and for the team itself. So I commend this transaction. It was really interesting to read and a good playbook for us on the long-term. And I'm sure it's going to come up expansion, venues, growth of PLL. So your careful eye on these types of transactions across our colleagues and other team sports leagues is helpful for us as we reject growth. And with that, why don't we just start with questions here, and break you up the first one, we got three to get down. Mike, Paul, hello. Hope you guys are doing well. This is Garrett down here in Gainesville, Florida with UF Mental Lacrosse. Got a question for you guys about how you see the future of field diagram, at least in the men's lacrosse side of things. We encounter at least three to four different types of fields as a mental lacrosse team playing field lacrosse. You can end up on a high school voice field. You can end up on a unified high school field, a collegiate men's field. And then obviously, at your level, the PLL field, which is unique in and of itself. Do you envision a future for men's lacrosse, boys lacrosse, at least the field game where, much like basketball, we could all play on the same playing surface with the same lines. Perhaps two-point arcs would vary based on age and skill level, but fundamentally, a men's field lacrosse field would be a men's field lacrosse field. Let me know what you think about that. Interested to hear your opinions and your vision. Thanks. What's a great question, Garrett. Thanks. And probably a lot to unpack. First note, though, is I agree there are different field dimensions, outdoor and indoor, and with sixes now in lacrosse. There are also different lines between women's and men. And if you see a game in college right now on TV, you're often seeing a field that has both the women's and the men's lines. It's got to be confusing for a viewer that's not as familiar with one or the other. One of the things that we think about when we take our venues out is, can we wash out all of the paint on the surface that we're coming in and touring on, and then make our lines really clean on the field? In some cases, you can't, because football lines are stitched into the turf, or college lacrosse lines are stitched into the turf. In others, you can just wash them out and make it really clear for broadcast, which is important. On the dimension front-- I think about this quite a bit. And one flag that it is not just the lacrosse challenge. You did mention basketball. The other is hockey. Those, the rank and the court are the same across all age groups. That's ideal. That's also venue-specific, because those are both indoor environments. And the ability to move bigger or smaller is far more restrictive. But take an example. When you look at basketball, it's different size balls. You have size four to size seven. And ultimately, it's about accessibility. So if you're a young basketball player learning the game for the first time, it's unlikely you're going to try to shoot on a 10-foot hoop. You're going to lower the hoop. When you play soccer globally, there are different pitch sizes based on the country, the age, the skill level. There's different time allotment per half, or even quarters in a match. And it's all about first helping the younger generation be able to pick up the game, fall in love with the game, then pursue it at the professional level. On the side of LaCrosse, our hope is to be able to continue to work with the IMLCA, the IWLCA, USA LaCrosse, club programs around the country, to figure out the direction of the PLL in way of our field dimensions. It's, by the way, we took out 10 yards from the middle of the field from the college game, because we didn't think it needs to be 110 yards. We think, based on the data that we were looking at, 100 yards gets it right. So we speak with these organizations to provide our rationale and our research and our resourcing, the continued evolution of the game. Ideally, we get to a unified place where all the dimensions are the same. But I would argue that it's best for us to have these different versions as we reach a level of scale that I believe a lot of leaders and investors in the game want us to get to. So you have field LaCrosse. We'd like to get to a place where dimensions are shared. You have box across, which is largely based on that rank, which is pretty static indoors. And then you have sixes LaCrosse, which is sort of a version of the two blended together. So in the end, why we love Olympic LaCrosse, why we love these different versions, is there all unique access points for different people around the world based on their skill, and based on where they want to go? 18 countries were playing LaCrosse. When I started, now there are 91 countries. Parity of play is important. So making sure that the field dimensions live within a spectrum such that people can pick up the game and play at a high level. And then in the end, total number of participants help the P.O.L. help college LaCrosse, help youth LaCrosse help women's LaCrosse. And that, I think, can't be forgotten as we look at continued regulation. I would say from my perspective, you hit the last point around participation. I mean, you and I, and the P.O.L. one is many people, kids all the way through the GULTS, playing LaCrosse for as long as they can play LaCrosse. And I think that what you see with different field sizes in different sports and different parameters around them is that it encourages more people to play and lowers attrition. From my perspective, if you can-- if you are in a thoughtful way using dimensions of a field or a course to encourage more participation in lower attrition, and so that's my perspective. Whatever it's going to take to keep more people playing and get them to play, I'm all about. Hey, guys. My name is Josh. I was calling to ask if you are planning on expansion any time in their future with there being so many viable players that don't get a lot of playing time in the P.O.L. And then upcoming drafts. Thanks. I mean, I'll take this one. I've taken it a lot. And I think it's a good question and a fair question. Here's a couple different points. It's almost like where to even start. But the first one is, most pro sports leagues that are team-based, like the P.O.L. The growth was driven historically by the teams. So the league was just sort of a shell entity owned on a pro-radabasis by these teams. And so it made sense for them to expand really, really quickly, regardless of quality of play, regardless of parity. And you can see with the history of leagues that failed, there's lots of them, the mergers that happened, they expanded too quickly. Because what happens is when they sell a franchise, the franchise fees go back to the league. But then the league makes that disbursement to the other teams. And so the teams are encouraged to drive, especially in the early days of the league, more expansions so they can get that cash windfall. And so for us, we've done the reverse. We've started the league, which owns the teams. And we want to grow in a very methodical and safe way that is creating parity and locking in great competition on the field, which is what pro sports should be the best of the best playing for a championship. And then over time, we are thoughtfully in the right way that's prudent for the sport, financially, for the league, the players, the investors, future owners, potentially, we are then expanding. You know, we started with six right before COVID, we expanded to seven. But with the merger with the MLL, we got to eight. And yes, are there some players who aren't making rosters? Sure. But that's also pro sports. And so yes, are there players who could probably play in the league, absolutely. And if we expanded, would there be more rosters for sure? But we've done things like create the champ series, where in the off season, it's six on six top four teams and regular seasons play. All of a sudden, you're seeing players who didn't make a roster, but all of a sudden are allowed to have a roster spot, get selected by a coach, they ball out. And they make a roster and they go to training camp, and they're succeeding. There's examples of that. And so for us, we think about creating more opportunities for competition, more programming that can pay players, that can create more content, giving them opportunities through that without overextending the league right now, and still maintaining parity. I would say that we are very aware that there's incredible talent on the sideline that could be playing professional lacrosse. So what we're constantly assessing internally is how do we provide those opportunities? Mike mentioned the champ series. We have a training camp where we're expanding rosters. We're expanding rosters for homecoming teams over the weekend. We're constantly talking to our coaches and GMs about doing site visits for players who didn't get drafted, but want to look and potentially have a. quarter back day version for that. So that's really important and doesn't require expansion. It just requires investment by the league and continued improvement on getting to where the best players are. And then on the business front per Mike's note, and a staff that I often like to share is since 1990, there have been about 200 sports leagues that have formed with a 1% success rate. And that is based on your ability to sustain for longer than three seasons. Mostly, it's turnover because they chase supply per Mike's note on league economics and it exceeds the demand. And we are hellbent on not doing that. We measure the increase in lacrosse fans total participants. We don't want to be what pro lacrosse had been for a long time. And so I think being really methodical around expansion, thinking about our business model, where we continue to tour because it's valuable to our fans, our players, our network partners, our sponsorships and the business model of the league. If and when we do go from eight teams to 10 or 12 or 14, you can't really tour anymore because that takes it more than four games over the course of a weekend. And when we piloted five games in 2021, we saw some attrition. It's just a lot to ask a fan to do is watch five games. So when we do expand, we're also, you know, observing a model shift to potentially home and away time all the way back to Mike's notes around the Arizona coyotes and now the SLC team and the NHL with Ryan Smith venues. When you have venues and you own them, you get scheduling leverage. When you have players and live in markets, you can play on Tuesdays and Thursday nights in the summer. So all that type of stuff is what we want to fully wrap our arms around before we continue to expand. Hey, Paul and Mike, my name is Brandon Perry and I'm a teacher and coach in Virginia. I'm curious your thoughts on the usage of social media and branding for athletes. Tom Brady recently just commented on how young athletes today are so concerned about their own brand and social media and they miss the focus from the team aspect and sport. Having followed your journey through the cross-poll, I've seen you really expanded your reach through branding and social media and the PLL is then strategic with using social media to grow the sport and reach new audiences in this new world we live in with NIL branding, social media. I'm curious what your thoughts are. What advice would you give the high school and college players looking to navigate this all? Thanks. Great question, Brandon. This is a complex one and there's a lot to sort of unpack. The first is understanding the difference between the properties, responsibility on social media, which is new media today. It's over 3 billion people on social and then the individual player, which I think Tom was referencing and so I'll talk about both. Why is social media valuable? It has become a secondary way to generate more value and thereby more income for athletes, creators, and entertainers. Secondary, the primary way, which has always been that case is your performance. Before social media, if you were Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Lindsey Vaughan, Tom Brady, you would get coverage from television, print, and radio. That would raise your profile and then brands like Nike, and Adi, and Under Armour, and champion would then say, "Hey, this is a top player in their sport with a lot of media exposure and we want to bring that to life by paying them to endorse our brand." Now, athletes have the ability to create that media and that audience thereby that value and potential income on their own. I love to start with why is it important? The second is understanding the history of sport sponsorship and why it's important to the league. Knowing this, having graduated in 2008 and signing my first endorsement deal, here's what typically goes into a sport sponsorship. The first is that brand signs an athlete for X amount of dollars. Okay, we all understand that and then proof we think magic happens. It doesn't. The brand then has to pay a production house, oftentimes it's outsourced for video and photo. Then they have to pay what's called a PR newswire to announce the partnership. Then they often pay an editorial two, three, or four to cover the announcement and give them the photos from that photo shoot, videos to cover why, by the way, Michael Jordan has signed with Nike. That costs money. Doesn't happen organically like you can now through social media. The third is that they buy spots or they buy commercials on television and then they often have to pay a league license such that Michael Jordan who shows up in a gay or a commercial can wear a Chicago Bulls jersey. Otherwise, you all have seen commercials out there where an athlete is just wearing a black shirt. And then the last one is like traveling athletes to appearances. So you may take an athlete endorsement of a hundred thousand dollars and realize from the business side it's actually costing them three million dollars to bring to life. So that's why it's so hard to get a sponsorship and also what goes into it. Today's day and age, a lot of brands will sign an athlete and then because of this mobile device, they ask the athlete to flip the phone and record themselves or take photos and upload it to their social media. Boom, we got the endorsement. It costs us nothing but the athlete fee. That seems pretty attractive. I do think that that time is reaching its sort of ceiling of conversion to an athlete or a tenor or a creator's audience because the audience now is getting this X-ray vision. So it's incumbent on the brands and the leagues to do more than that. That's why we have a production house internally at the PLO. So we can create content for our players, for our brand partners. We have a relationship with ESPN where we can get that content on air. We have a relationship through a service called Greenfly where we get the content to our players so they can upload it. So that's how I think about the landscape. Now, to Tom Brady's call out, yeah, I agree. Look, I think that some athletes can be distracted by social media. But I would also say make no mistake that if an athlete's not uploading their sports highlights or their practice or their workouts, doesn't mean they're not using the platform. I think you should assume that every kid out there is using social media for more than two hours a day. So the distraction is just starting there. Can perhaps sport or your discipline be used for good on social media? I think so. And my feeling, at least having gone through it, is that you can practice and have someone shoot your practice and share that message and that'd be valuable to the athlete, to the sport at large, to the team they play for, and to the community. There's this misperception that athletes are marketers or that athletes are performers. And I understand the logic behind it because when we put on a helmet where our jersey on field, we're on screen. But we're doing our discipline, you forget that the cameras are on. All of a sudden you take your helmet off and you're on a different lens. You have to be trained for that. So not all athletes or creators or entertainers are natural on social media. So it's incumbent on the leagues and the teams to understand which athlete is better on this platform, which athlete is better on that platform, which athletes like to do it on their own. We call that user generated content and then support them. So that's my sort of take on all of this. There's not a one size fits all. I do think for athletes that are not on social media, the path to getting sponsorship income is still there. There are a lot of the biggest actors in the world, a lot of biggest athletes that are not on social or don't use it regularly. So there is still life there. But just know that if you're not on it, you are for going that very clear opportunity to create value through audience and additional income. I mean, you nailed it, man. My perspective is a lot simpler and I don't have your first-hand experience. But from my seat, look, the global advertising market by 2025, this would be $1 trillion. If you think about just what's is spent on TikTok, 25 billion a year, I look at is athletes if they're in high school and college and then all the supporting industry that you're talking about, the production companies, the editors, it's good for the economy. It's good for the creator economy. Athletes as creators, that they are able to access this advertising budget. So I'm like all for it. And yes, it's very hard to get advertisers, but the barrier to entry to create content and the cost is a lot lower. And then therefore, that advertising budget can be tapped into, like you're saying, by younger athletes, I think, you know, if you're going to sit there and say that the athletes are more focused, younger athletes, non-pro, I'm assuming that's what Tom Brady's statement was around are more focused on accessing advertising dollars via NIL and winning on the field. That may be true, but I also don't think that my opinion is that if you're not winning on the field, there are very few players who can lose a lot of games and not be great teammates who are able to be. be authentically capturing a lot of audience and then therefore capturing advertising dollars. I think if you win and if you are a great teammate, the fundamentals of sports, you are going to be able to become more popular with an audience and then therefore build your audience if you decide to do so on social media and then access those dollars. I have a hard time thinking about people that don't win even at the high school level and become five star recruits by rivals.com. There may be some who are just bigger and faster than everyone. But winning is probably the most important ingredient. I've talked to NFL presidents who run the front office and some of them say that winning is a deodorant for the front office. If the team on the field performs, the front office does well. More advertising dollars, more ticket sales, more merchandise is sold. I think that carries over to youth athletes. If they're winning and they're focusing, they're going to become more popular if they choose to be on social. Then their audience will be bigger and they'll be able to access more of those advertising dollars. That's my thought and just my humble opinion. You can also just use social media well. The idea that life is about either or I've always disagreed with. I think it's and within our ability to adapt and do things for good or under your North Star. So to my point, if you want to be a professional lacrosse player, the number one thing needs to be your performance, your work ethic, your how good you are in the locker room as a teammate, how you're performing during games, your studying, etc. But the idea that social media will be a distraction is just an idea because that all depends on if you allow it to be. You can make the argument that young athletes shouldn't go to school because school work is going to distract them from their practice at night. That's bullshit. So to be able to have your career as an athlete, where you're focused and performing when you're working out, to be able to be a great student, going to school, doing homework, to be able to be in a great relationship with your partner, to be able to create a relationship with your audience and tell stories that are valuable to brands and your league. All that stuff is possible. I live in an end world. And then the last piece is support each other. Stop trolling. It's not healthy. And what it's doing is it is preventing the next generation from enjoying the fucking game. You know, if if if another number one high school lacrosse recruit or football group or basketball recruit does a collab on this amazing last second goal and the first 10 comments are negative, they're going to stop posting. And what's going to happen if your people are going to look at lacrosse. So I think like going back to Mike's point, being a good teammate is also how you support each other in the comment section. Are you liking their posts? Are you sharing it? Like we're all in this together as a lacrosse community and social media can be used to our advantage so we can continue to grow. Boom. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed episode two. Mike and I will be back together in our life wrap. So three keep sending in your questions. And it's really been fun to do this. So I'm glad we've been able to unlock this and get together and talk shop. Same. Keep the questions rolling. Brett, thank you for the production. Looking forward to being with Paul and L.A. And we're going to keep improving. So keep the feedback coming.