8 cities where Major League Lacrosse should expand
While lacrosse continues to be one of the fastest growing sports in America, Major League Lacrosse (MLL) has not had the same amount of growth as high school and college levels. Less than half of the 9 MLL teams average more than 3,000 fans a game. The MLL has tried to expand to lacrosse markets, yet have failed in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Hamilton (ON), Piscataway, Bridgeport, and Toronto which have all folded. While I could look to the past to try and discover why these teams folded, instead I focused on the future and tried to determine where should the MLL expand to next? In order for the team to be successful, these new MLL cities would need (1) the population to support a team, (2) the fan base to attend the games, (3) and most importantly, a lacrosse community to back the team. By quantifying these three characteristics, I was able to rank the cities where the MLL should expand. City Population
In order to limit the scope of my project, I restricted my search parameter to the 50 largest cities in the United States. Certainly, there are some lacrosse fanatic cities that are not large metropolitan cities such as Annapolis and Rochester. However, most of these locations have already fielded (or tried to) professional lacrosse teams. Therefore, I wanted to see what large cities would be able to sustain a lacrosse team.
The breakdown structure for city population is cited below.
Fan Base
Next, I wanted to see if these cities are able to support their teams. Thus, I created a ranking for professional sports teams (NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, & MLS) based on attendance (both total fans and percentage of stadium filled). In addition to attending games, I wanted to look and see what teams were able to connect with their fans. In order to quantify how teams interacted with their fans, I looked at social media accounts for all of the sports teams and gave them points based on their social media presence. In addition, if you had any sports franchise fold you were assessed a penalty of -5 points. While some cities had multiple teams fold, the entrepreneur in me could not penalize a city for continually trying to build a franchise so I set a cap of -5 points per city. Breakdown structure for fan base cited below.
For example, if you had a team that was top 5 in attendance (people), 15th in percentage of stadium built, and 21st among teams in your league on social media - you would be awarded 6 points (3 for attendance (fans) and 2 for attendance (stadium), and 1 for social media). I then summed up all of the sports franchise per city. Thus, if you had 4 teams like the one above you would be awarded 6*4=24 points.
Lacrosse Community
The last, and most important, measurement was the lacrosse footprint in the city. I examined both the number of US Youth Lacrosse Members and the number of high school lacrosse teams that each metropolitan had. It is worth noting that the US Lacrosse Annual Report monitors areas in regions (example Eastern MA instead of Boston), thus I had to label each city to an associated region. In addition, for high school sports I counted the sports teams by state. I recognize that this skews the data towards some of the bigger states (ex. Texas & California), however I did not have a method for breaking down the high school teams per area without looking up over thousands of small towns across the country.
Breakdown structure for lacrosse community cited below.
How the Current Teams Stacked Up
In order to see if my model had any sort of reliability, I decided to see how the current MLL teams would perform based on the analytical model.
Of the 5 MLL teams that in are in included in my study, the two most successful teams are both in the Top 10 of my model, while the other 3 teams who are struggling all lie outside the Top 10. So far so good with the model. In addition, I decided to check on the cities where the MLL tried to expand.
Looking at the data, you can see that someone in the MLL office had similar ideas as me. Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco should have been able to support a team. They all currently have a strong lacrosse following and are able to support other professional sports teams. So, before I start this article I would like to speak to everyone reading this from Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco…
Now that I have got that out of my system let’s look at the top 8 places the MLL should expand!
Portland
Portland, Oregon is known for two things, craft beer and Peter Baum. Peter Baum was the first person to put Portland on the lacrosse map as he went on to win the Tewaarton award in 2012 with Colgate (roll gate roll). Portland is the 26th largest city in the United States and is already supporting two professional men’s teams. In addition, they have never had a franchise leave the city. Lacrosse is growing in the northwest as Oregon currently supports 48 high school teams (24th out of 50 states) and over 6K US lacrosse members (19th out of 68 locations). Who wouldn’t want to grab a specialty beer and game? Portlanders would!
Seattle
Seattle has become one of the most important cities in the country as it is the home of Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco, Nordstroms, Weyehauser, Alaska Airlines, Expedia, Paccar, and Expeditors international. Hidden behind the growth of the city has been the development of the lacrosse community with over 11k players (12th out of 68) and 81 high school teams (17th out of 50 states). Not only do they have quantity of players but they have the quality of players as programs like Mercer Island come to the east coast and compete with a number of top programs. Not only do they have the lacrosse presence but they have an incredibly loyal fan base, according to social media, Seattle rank 11th out of 46 teams when it comes to fan interactions. Bring that 12th man to an MLL game!
Minneapolis
While at first glance it might look like Minneapolis is one of the smaller cities on this list (46th largest city in the country and hence the 1 point), it actually is the 16th largest metropolitan areas in the country as St. Paul boarders it. Minnesota has a huge lacrosse following with 88 high school teams (16th out of 50) and 15k (8th out of 68) players. Moreover, if you’ve been watching Division 3 lacrosse the past couple of years you’ve seen Minnesota’s John Upgreen terrorize defenses as he is one of only 3 players to post over 400 points in his career. Minnesota has a deep history of supporting a variety of sports teams as they rank 10th out of 46 cities in sports attendance as they are home to four professional sports teams (Vikings, Timberwolves, Wild, and United FC). I promise you, you get someone selling some juicy lucys in a stadium and you will get fans.
Detroit
Detroit was tied with Minneapolis for the 11th best location to field a professional lacrosse team. Home to best nick name of all college lacrosse players, Sergio Perkovic - “The Motor City Hitman.” Detroit has a great history of lacrosse. Detroit already has a substantial lacrosse community as Michigan has over 6k youth members, 100 high school teams, and also has a division 1 lacrosse program within city limits. Moreover, Brother Rice and Detroit Catholic Central are consistently ranked in the top 50 high school teams in the country. Detroit currently has a professional sports team in the four major leagues with the 8th most loyal following on social. With a top ranking in almost all major categories, Detroit should be poised to support a professional lacrosse team.
Miami
Unlike the cities above, where the MLL has never tried to break into those markets, MLL has tried to break into the south Florida market. The only problem is they choose the wrong location. Currently, the Florida Launch is located in Boca Raton an hour away from Miami. While this was most likely due to cost reasons, Boca Raton has a population of about 93k. Miami has a metropolitan population of 5.5M! Move an hour down the road and you are able to still capture Florida market. Southern Florida is already churning great players and programs as Florida has over 200 high school teams. To make money you got to spend money, pay the extra money to move down to a city that actually gives your team a chance to survive.
Washington, DC
Another city that is close to a current MLL team (Chesapeake Bayhawks) is DC. While Chesapeake has done a good job supporting their team (3rd highest attendance in the MLL), DC offers higher upside. Not only is it one of the largest cities in the country, but also has one of the strongest lacrosse communities in the country. Just think of the high school programs in the city: Gonzaga, Georgetown Prep, Landon, St. Stephens / St. Agnes, Bullis, Dematha, and so on. DC is a hot bed for lacrosse, how do they not have a professional lacrosse team. DC you haven’t reached a conference championship in the four major sports leagues in 20 years (seriously how is that even possible), bring lacrosse to your city to give your fans something to cheer about!
Dallas
Dallas does everything big. As the 9th most populated city in the country, Dallas has been able to pack arenas. The Cowboys & Mavericks both rank in to the top 10 in attendance and even the Stars bring in over 18k fans a game (16th highest attendance in NHL) despite having no ice in Dallas. Northern Texas has over 7k youth players which is good for 17th largest region in the country. Moreover, it has some of the best high school lacrosse programs in the South. Both Dallas Jesuit and Episcopal Dallas ranked as the 2nd and 3rd best high school programs in the South East (according to inside lacrosse). Dallas loves its sports teams; why not give them another one?
New York
New York is wicked expensive. I get that. I get that bringing lacrosse to New York City will cost a lot of money and that is why Long Island Lizards play in Hempstead instead of New York City. But just think of the upside if you moved the stadium an hour west to New York City. It is the most populated city in the country and has a loyal fan base in every single sports (and in some cases 2 teams per league). It has almost 100 more high school lacrosse programs than the next closest state (PA) and 20 different high school leagues/sections/classes in the state. Additionally (while I don’t have the statistics with me on hand), most lacrosse players go into business or finance. New York is the finance capital of the world. Think of all of the players that are currently working in New York City, you don’t think some of them would be willing to go watch a game after work? New York City had a whopping 21 more points in this model than the second closest city (Boston). Fortune favors the bold – make it happen MLL put a team in New York City. If a team can make it in NYC, it can make it anywhere.
