Imagine going to a massive stadium like Metlife. The atmosphere of thousands of people cheering and celebrating. An electrifying sensation of fans chanting their team’s name. Purchasing delicious foods to watch during the game. And most of all fans create memories they will never forget. This is what Paul and Mike Rabil want to create with the Premiere Lacrosse League.
The league debuted its first game in Gillette Stadium in Foxborough Massachusetts where the New England Patriots played football on June 1, 2019. But it was founded in 2018 by Paul Rabil and his brother CEO Mike Rabil. Paul Rabil is a huge figure in lacrosse’s history. He is a two-time World Champion with team USA, a three-time professional league champion and MVP and a two-time NCAA Champion. Paul also has a massive social media presence for a lacrosse player with 275 thousand followers on Youtube and 432 thousand followers on Instagram Paul’s brother Mike Rabil was a highly successful businessman after going to the university of Dartmouth and playing division 1 football.
Paul and Mike tried to take ownership of the MLL (Major League Lacrosse) but were unsuccessful so they started a new league. The brothers wanted to create a better atmosphere for the fans. They wanted to increase the pay for the players because they weren’t being paid as much as they thought they should in the MLL. He wanted to make it so the Players could play the sport for a living like players in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB without having another job. The League also offers many benefits to the players such as full-time wages, health insurance and equity in the league which the MLL didn’t offer.
Paul Rabil wanted to take advantage of the social media aspect of the league to help the sport grow. The PLL gives players the photos they take during games so they could build their own brands on social media. The league is very active on all social media platforms. They post highlights, updates, and news about the games throughout the season. On YouTube they do gameday vlogs and other activities that other leagues don’t. They’re is also more of a chance of a response from them because they are such a small organization.
The league goes from city to city throughout the entire country. This goes for about 12 weeks in the summer starting in early June,ut Starting in 2024 the PLL has assigned home cities for each individual team. There are eight teams: Boston Cannons, California Redwoods, Carolina Chaos, Denver Outlaws, Maryland Whipsnakes, New York Atlas, Philadelphia Water Dogs and Utah Archers. They will keep doing the tour style weekends but the home team will play twice. During February 14th-19th in Springfield, Va the PLL are going to hold their annual championship series. The top four teams from the past season play in a 6v6 fast paced style of lacrosse.
“This merger only benefits the future of the game, for it combines the history of professional lacrosse with an innovative approach that has already accelerated the game’s growth” the PLL quoted Sandy Brown. This came after the PLL and MLL agreed on merging the companies together under the PLL. With the merger the PLL added an expansion team, the Cannons Lacrosse Club.
The Premiere Lacrosse League has created a positive future for the sport of lacrosse. But there is still much more for Paul and Mike to do and this is just the beginning.
