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(06-09-2019 09:56 PM)The T-Shirt Wrote:  Some interesting sh!t going on in the world of professional lacrosse. So the MLL, Major League Lacrosse (field lacrosse), has been around since 2001 or so and has seen varying degrees of success. Expansions and contractions, TV deals or lack thereof. But it's been around. There is also the NLL, which is the indoor (box lacrosse) league, it plays in a different season than the MLL and as such the leagues share numerous players. For the purpose of this post, the NLL isn't really relevant.

A number of top tier players in the MLL were growing tired of the leagues stagnation and lack of vision. There's more that goes into it (low pay, no healthcare, etc.) but we aren't going to dig that deep in this post. So anyway, these players have broken away from the MLL and have started their own league, the Premier Lacrosse League. The PLL has signed a big time TV deal with NBC (relative to lacrosse) and stolen a large chunk of the MLL talent. Still some strong talent in the MLL but the PLL took a ton of guys away. The first ever professional lacrosse game on a major broadcast network was today on NBC. The production on all the game's broadcasts for the PLL have been incredible and the social media content has been next level. On field interviews, mic'd up huddles, skycams, numerous camera angles, you name it. Like this: https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1137793...97153?s=19

The PLL is a traveling league with six teams, playing in major venues in major markets. The MLL is your traditional league with six teams each in their own city. The PLL modified the rules a bit, they shortened their field a touch and instituted a shorter shot clock. This has led to an extremely fast paced version of the game. In all honesty, this has been some of the most impressive and intense games of lacrosse I've seen at any level.

Here are this weeks (Week 2) highlights for the PLL:

Whipsnakes vs Chrome: https://youtu.be/tsjMTARMSVk

Archers vs Redwoods: https://youtu.be/CsszGFh9dws

Atlas vs Chaos: https://youtu.be/BiQow8lrpqg

A video covering the first weeks action: https://youtu.be/DKogdbzRFdY
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For the MLL, they aren't as good about posting highlight videos, but their lack of a TV deal allows for all their games to be archived here: https://www.laxsportsnetwork.com/mll

So no highlights this week yet, but free full games if interested.

I'm not sure if the PLL will be successful, but so far they are killing it, at least in the hearts and minds. I'm skeptical of some of their business decisions, but the on field and over the air product is spectacular. And props to the MLL for surviving a mutiny like this and still plugging ahead.

Main PLL site: https://www.premierlacrosseleague.com

Main MLL site: https://majorleaguelacrosse.com

The Ohio Machine was one of the causalities of the fall out. That's a shame as their attendance had been in the top 6 and they were one of the few with their own stadium. The MLL changed the rules where each owner could only own one team. The Machines owner owned four and had to drop three.

The MLL, while stagnant and low paying from the players view, had a proven business model. The PLL is a gamble that might cause both leagues to fail. All that cutting edge production adds cost which has to be recovered to break even. From what I understand the PLL tv deal is ad sharing not defined dollars. The question is how long their investors allow them to burn cash without a return on investment if these numbers don't improve. The numbers for the PLL first week, in person attendance and paid viewership, hasn't been great. You would have thought early attendance would be high just because of the curiosity factor. I also wonder how well they will be able to sustain the interest for in person crowds without a home team.