Premier Lacrosse League plans to sell teams by 2028 or soon after
Paul Rabil on CNBC Boardroom Game Plan: Ownership Game Panel, July 25, 2023.
Jesse Grant | CNBC
The Premier Lacrosse League wants to start selling its teams to individual owners or groups by 2028 “or later,” Premier Lacrosse League co-founder Paul Rabil told CNBC.
Rabil said he would like to see the league expand from eight to 16 teams over the next decade, similar to other U.S. professional leagues, with each team independently owned. The PLL is in its eighth season and the teams are currently owned by the league itself.
Rabil, 40, is perhaps the most famous American lacrosse player in history and played Major League Lacrosse from 2008 to 2018 before founding the PLL with his brother Mike. PLL merged with MLL in 2020.
PLL is one of the emerging sports leagues that started with a single-entity ownership model, along with League One Volleyball, Women’s Professional Hockey League and Basketball Africa League.
League One Volleyball recently began selling teams to interested owners. pay expansion fees taking control of franchises. NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum told CNBC Sport last month that BAL is now starting that process.
The demand for sports team ownership has skyrocketed in recent years as valuations for the biggest sports such as the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have increased. The rise in team valuations in the Big Four U.S. sports leagues has led a group of investors to look at more affordable teams in Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League and the WNBA.
Emerging sports leagues like the PLL are trying to prove they can join this class of suspended leagues that can achieve team values in the hundreds of millions, or even close to a billion dollars.
Earlier this week, PLL raised $100 million in a Series E funding round to grow the league. Rabil is counting on the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics to promote the league and the sport. Lacrosse hasn’t been a medal sport at the Summer Games for nearly 120 years, but it will return in 2028.
“The first tickets for lacrosse sold out within 48 hours, so there is a good buzz being generated,” Rabil said.
PLL is backed by a combination of investor firms and wealthy individuals.
However, Rabil is a large private equity fund or a strategic company. TKO Group, The company, which owns World Wrestling Entertainment, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Professional Bull Riders, wants to acquire the league, and “We would definitely have those discussions.”
