MLL moves out of west
As of Thursday afternoon PM EST yesterday, the MLL officially became smaller. Both west coast franchises in the Los Angeles Riptide and the San Francisco Dragons, the Philadelphia Barrage and the New Jersey Pride have all exited the league. The Rochester Rattles franchise has also moved but not left.
The news comes as little surprise to many as professional lacrosse has struggled for the past two seasons in trying to solidify and support a franchise on the West coast. The only successful West Coast team has been the Denver Outlaws franchise which plays its games in the home of the Broncos, INVESCO Field or to most “Mile High” .
Denver has been the highest grossing franchise the past couple seasons while also supporting a thriving indoor NLL franchise with the Mammoth. Whatever that city has been doing has not been stereotypical of all MLL teams.
The inability to draw large enough crowds to generate revenue and the constant burden of having a roster that does not even live in the city you play has plagued these teams.
The MLL and Commissioner David Gross hope to eliminate some of these problems by shrinking the League number to six teams giving a geographic advantage to each. The sixth team as unveiled just this afternoon in Toronto’s Air Canada Centre is the Toronto Nationals. The Nationals, formerly the Rochester Rattlers franchise will consist of mainly Rattlers players with the addition of most big name Canadian players living on the east coast. By eliminating the Philadelphia and New Jersey franchises, other East coast teams like Boston, Long Island and Washington have been forced to include some of these ship wrecked players for their April scheduled mini camps.
In theory this will stack each of the remaining 6 teams with about 10 teams worth of talent flushing out the mediocre core of the MLL. More talent will equal more competitive and intense gameplay in turn creating more of a buzz around the game to draw the desired attendance numbers. As low a point as this may seem for Major League Lacrosse, the games will definitely be more competitive and fans should rally to support their team this summer.
For a complete run down of the changes and the complete 2009 schedule……
http://www.majorleaguelacrosse.com/news/pressreleases/index.html?article_id=1275
MLL
This is really unfortunate. MLL can bounce back. At one point, Major League Soccer had to cancel operation of two Florida teams, bringing their league from 12 to 10 teams, but 5 or so years later, they are running with about 15 teams. We just need to all support MLL, and if they ever do a tour in the Seattle area, we should all go.