Premier Lacrosse League’s Introduction of Home Markets Yields Early Returns

Premier Lacrosse League’s Introduction of Home Markets Yields Early Returns

The Premier Lacrosse League assigned each of its eight clubs to home markets prior to the start of the 2024 season. 

The barnstorming league made the move in an attempt to begin building ‘generational fandom’ (think: the love for ones’ team gets passed down). It believes tying clubs to geo-locations is the surest way to cultivate an impassioned fan base and simultaneously grow its business.

 “Our goal is to create true foundational fandom that starts to elevate and move lacrosse into the upper tier of sports consumption,” Jerod Laughlin (SVP of growth, PLL) said.

Early indications suggest the league is headed in the right direction. 

Performance Through Week 5

• Onsite merchandise sales are up 38% YoY

  • Product sales for the home team at each ‘Homecoming’ weekend comprise, on average, 51% of total sales

• Attendance up 15.9% YoY

• App users (+46.6%) and user sessions (+98.8%) are both up YoY

  • By “claiming a club” in the app, fans can access personalized content and join dedicated PLL chat channels exclusively for their favorite team

  • The league also offers the only pro-lacrosse fantasy game on the market in its app

• Social media views have increased YoY at the league (+49.61%) and team (143.49%) levels

• PLL Play youth tournament participation has risen 21% YoY

“We're unlocking new levels of fandom in each market by creating organic connections between our teams and existing sports fans in those communities,” Tom Brady (chief media and marketing officer, PLL) said.

The league uses storytelling and a multitude of marketing efforts to achieve them (think: outfitting stadiums in local team colors/branding, seeding local fan clubs).

Fans in some of these markets “never had an opportunity to root for a pro lacrosse team [before] and now that they’re getting exposed to it, we’re seeing them become attached to it,” Laughlin said.

The PLL launched with a tour-based approach five years ago. The model enabled the league to optimize for broadcast windows, venue availability, and operational scale out of the gate.

The PLL is not abandoning that strategy. Barnstorming ensures each stop on its tour is an event.

“People will cancel plans, they will modify what they're doing because they want to be present at that weekend,” Laughlin said. 

The move to assign teams to home markets is simply an evolution of its growth strategy as the league enters a ‘hyper growth’ phase. Its broadcast rights deal with ABC/ESPN expires following the ’25 season (so it faces an upcoming negotiation). Lacrosse is also going to be in the Olympics this summer for the first time, which should increase the number of people exposed to the game.

While the PLL has built a supportive fan base over the last five years (data from MRI Simmons suggests there are now more than 45 million lacrosse fans in the U.S., up from 13 million at the ’18 launch), leadership came to realize that more people were fans of the league and its players than of any one team. As a result, they lacked emotional investment in the games’ outcome.

Initially, the plan was to stack club rosters based on the players’ college affiliation. The thinking was fans and alumni of those schools would naturally gravitate towards their favorite players’ PLL team. 

And many did, to a degree. 

“What happens over time, though, is players retire, people get traded, and those efforts get diluted,” Long Ellis (VP of content, PLL) said.

The college-centric approach also lacks appeal with the next generation of fans.

Gen-Zs “gravitate towards outsized personalities and the actual branding of the team,” Laughlin said. “They are fickle consumers of the visual.”

The PLL knew to create fan avidity for individual franchises it needed to do a better job of connecting them to supporters. 

“We understood the historical precedent of sports fandom being tied to local roots,” Ellis said. “As we conducted further research on both our core fan base and general sports fans, it became evident that this was the right time to transition to a geo-affiliated model.”

The decision was quickly made to tie each of the league’s teams to individual markets. Figuring out which cities or geographies to pursue took more time. 

Leadership created a rigorous scorecard to aid in its selection process.

“We evaluated our past performance and key data points in a multitude of markets around the country,” Christian Henze (chief strategy officer, PLL) said. “Everything from viewership demographics, [to] youth sports participation, NPS scores, ticket sales, and lacrosse affinity [was accounted for].”

Ultimately, the league settled on eight markets spanning coast-to-coast; Boston, California, Carolina, Denver, Maryland, New York, Philadelphia, and Utah. New York was awarded the Atlas. 

In some respects, New York’s selection made sense. Long Island is a lacrosse hotbed. New York City and upstate NY also have large youth participation communities. So, a foundation for fandom exists in the state.

On the flip side, metropolitan New York City also has nine big four sports teams.

It’s fair to wonder why an emerging league would choose to place one of tentpole franchises in such a challenging market.

“Manhattan is where angels fear to tread from a marketing perspective,” Laughlin acknowledged.

But one must understand that the PLL is not yet at the point where growing into adjacent fandoms is a core part of its acquisition strategy.

“Our job is not to convince Mets and Yankees fans that they should become Atlas fans,” Laughlin said. “Our job is to convince lacrosse fans in the New York, Connecticut, [and] New Jersey area that they should be Atlas fans–and luckily, that’s not super hard.”

Naturally, the league’s aspirations will change as it matures. From a participatory perspective, football and hockey have the most overlap with the sport.

The Atlas aren’t being marketed as a New York City team, either. The club is supposed to represent the entire state (even if much of its branding leans into the city). 

“There's New York City and then there's upstate [New York], and those are two very different environments,” Brady said. “From an Atlas fandom standpoint, we really try to embrace both.”

For context, the league’s recent New York tour stop, and the Atlas’ first ever home games, was held in Albany.

Building a connection between a new pro team and fans starts with presenting the franchise (and its players) as representative of the local market.

The PLL wisely chose to lean into NYC’s iconic imagery. It adjusted the Atlas’ longhorn-like logo to look more like Wall Street’s ‘Charging Bull’ statue and added pinstripes to the team’s uniform. 

On the content side, the league created a persona for the club’s editing style, tone, copy, and caption writing that makes fans feel as if one of their own is speaking to them.

“From a video editing, creative graphics, and photography perspective, everything we do has a set of brand guidelines that we try and adhere to so that each team feels unique,” Ellis said. “The way we talk to consumers from the Carolina team is completely different than how we’re talking to fans of the New York team.”

The premium assets the PLL creates and storytelling it does for each club are market specific (think: focus on the indigenous communities’ role in lacrosse history in New York). '

As are the content creators and influencers it collaborates with. 

For example, “we've got great relationships with Barstool, Friday Beers, and other media entities and personalities that have already gained a foothold in the New York sports market,” Ellis said. “We’re working with them, bringing them to our games, [and] creating content with them.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge PLL faces in New York and its other home markets is remaining relevant 365 days/year when it’s only playing games there on two of them.

The league expects its youth engagement efforts to play a critical role in addressing that imbalance. Kids are beginning to be assimilated into branded recreational programs that introduce them to the game and their local franchise.

“Young boys and girls across New York now play in Junior NY Atlas leagues and rec programs,” Ellis said. And “NY Atlas players [are] integrated into all the camps and clinics from upstate to Long Island.”

Logic suggests many of those children will grow up to become Atas fans, and the hope is that one day their kids will too.

Don’t be surprised if the PLL eventually shifts towards a more traditional home and away schedule (think: 3-5 years). That kind of move would come with many players relocating to their teams’ home markets and the clubs establishing a local presence there year-round.

PLL is looking at a variety of metrics, including the number of fans engaging with team social accounts and consuming their content, to determine if its geo-based pivot is working.

“Team account engagement is up 20% since the cities were announced and team account video views are up over 140%,” Ellis said.

Of course, the goal at the day is to increase ticket sales, tune-in, and merchandise sold, so gate receipts, viewership, and jersey sales are among the other data points the league is keeping its eyes on.

The PLL will be in Fairfield, CT this weekend for one of two neutral site tour stops this season (July 19/20). Each is themed to ensure they feel important for the fans attending and that they are visually compelling for those watching at home.

“Making the weekend feel special for them is what sets us apart from our competition,” Laughlin said.

This weekend is throwback weekend. The league will celebrate the game through the lens of the 1940s and ‘50s. All in-stadium branding, uniforms designs, digital creative, and social storytelling will lean into to the era. 

An Eastern Conference battle between the top-ranked New York Atlas and #2 Boston Cannons will headline the slate in Fairfield. The matchup will take place at 3pm ET on Saturday and air on ABC. Tickets for Friday and Saturday’s games in CT are still available at PLLTickets.com, and all can be streamed on ESPN+.