Slow growth the strategy for this fast sport
The definitive story on the origin of Major League Lacrosse starts with Jake.
Yes, that Jake -- ``Body by Jake," ``Ab Rocker" Jake, ``Big Brother" Jake -- Jake Steinfeld, the high-energy, high-profile risk taker who, after conquering television, infomercials, and, most recently, books, decided an upstart league would be a worthwhile gamble.
The way MLL commissioner David Gross tells it, the actor/entrepreneur/personal fitness pioneer was on a flight about seven years ago, reading a magazine. As Steinfeld thumbed through the magazine, he found a story about David Morrow, a Princeton grad, an All-America lacrosse player, and, more importantly, an entrepreneur like Jake.
By the time the plane touched down, Jake had found Morrow's contact info and put in a phone call that went something like this:
Steinfeld: Is there a professional lacrosse league?
Morrow: No.
Steinfeld: Well, there is now.
Steinfeld, Morrow, and another partner, Tim Robertson, founded the league with their own money, investment dollars from sponsors, and a $600,000 entry fee from each of six start-up teams.
More importantly, they started the business with a strategy.
Not a plan. A strategy.
``A business plan is a pie in the sky," Steinfeld said. ``You throw it out and you make new ones."
But the strategy of Major League Lacrosse since its inception has been to work within its means, and since the league played its first game in 2001, it has slowly grown, from six cities to 12, from 130 players to more than 250, from 12 broadcasts a year to more than 40, from the Northeast to what Gross calls a ``national footprint."
And the league has plans -- no, a strategy -- to grow even more. In order to do it, Gross said, the league, its founders, its executives, its sponsors, its players, and its fans will have to answer questions.
``For the founders," Gross said, ``how do we stop losing money and make this thing profitable? For the players, how do we make it a full-time job? For the fans, how do we keep them interested and make sure our events are compelling enough for them? For our sponsors, how are we driving enough business for our sponsors to make it worthwhile?"
Simply put, he said, ``How do we create a value for all the stakeholders?"
The amount of money Major League Lacrosse lost last year is negligible, according to Gross. ``Peanuts" was actually his word of choice.
The losses totaled less than $1 million. The league lost around $4 million in its initial season and the amount has decreased every year since.
``We're not talking about $40 million or $50 million," said Gross, in his third year as MLL commissioner after serving as general manager of the Boston Cannons. ``We're keeping it in small numbers, manageable numbers."
Around the same time Steinfeld's gang created the MLL, 20 members of the 1999 US women's World Cup soccer team, Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm among them, decided to create the Women's United Soccer Association and Vince McMahon, ringleader of the circus that is
McMahon's league lasted just a year, and in that short time, it managed to cost WWE $36.4 million. After blowing nearly $100 million in investment dollars from companies such as
Major League Lacrosse, Gross said, is different.
``It's a league that's known its limitations from the start and never tried to be anything that it wasn't," Gross said. ``It is a league that is going to continue to grow and build momentum and eventually make a major impact on the sports landscape in America, and the reason I can say that is we have a great product.
``We have the best players in the world. All it takes is time to get people exposed to the product and to get on board. It takes time."
Gross gives his spiel to the rookies each year.
``You're not going to make much money doing this," he says. ``Twenty years from now, some kid's going to be making a lot of money playing lacrosse. He won't know who you are. He won't care who you are. And he'll feel entitled to everything he got without giving a thought about you.
``But what you'll have that that guy 20 years from now won't have is you'll be able to call yourself a pioneer."
That's why David Evans believes so much in the league. It's not the money. The average salary is around $13,000, and he says he made more when the league first started than he does now. It's because he knows what lacrosse was like before MLL. He played on the club teams. He paid his way to championship games. He packed his own bags, carried his own equipment, and when the game was over, he and the guys went to the bar afterward.
Those days, he said, ``You were just trying to get enough guys together to play a game. It was just enough to get your fix."
Then came Major League Lacrosse.
``You just never saw it happening," said Evans, now a six-year defenseman with the Cannons. ``The guys started talking about it, and I was blown away."
Back then, Evans was playing two-thirds of his games on minor league baseball fields, where artificial grass was laid over plastic bags.
``It was like playing on ice," Evans said.
Now the league offers venues from Nickerson Field at Boston University to Invesco Field at Mile High. The league expanded at the start of this season, adding four teams and creating a Western Conference. The franchises sold for $1 million each.
The league intends to add another two teams in 2008 -- San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Tampa Bay are among the possibilities, according to Steinfeld -- at $1.5 million. The increase in the value of its franchises is a better barometer of the league's progress than profits, Gross said.
``Obviously, you want to make a profit," he said. ``You ask the founders, they're going to say how much do we have to put in. But if we were to turn around and say to the founders the league loss is going to triple in the next three years, but by tripling we're going to be growing at such a fast pace that we're going to end up making more money, they would buy into it."
The key to the next phase of expansion is the same thing that made this year's expansion so successful: the partners. The league's Los Angeles franchise, the Riptide, is backed by premier sports and entertainment company
``This business works with the right people," Steinfeld said. Major League Lacrosse has been able to foster relationships with companies such as Anheuser-Busch, New Balance, ESPN, and
They are," Steinfeld said, ``sports legitimizers."
``Unless it's the right partner, we're not going to do it," Gross said. ``There's no need to rush in two new teams unless we can make those two teams successful."
That, at least, is the strategy.
