The National Lacrosse League has spent the summer proudly announcing that they surpassed 1 million in attendance at their games for the second year in a row, which is pretty good.
However, they also folded a team due to poor attendance and relocated another that was struggling. And they aren’t the only ones struggling.
Reaching a million fans in attendance the last two years was based on having 15 active franchises. However, you could argue the league was doing better 15-20 years ago, when the average per-game attendance was considerably higher.
From 2005-2009, the NLL drew more than 10,000 fans per game, with a peak of 10,703 in 2006. The numbers began to decline in 2010 as the Toronto Rock, Buffalo Bandits, and Philadelphia Wings—three of the best attended teams, historically—all saw their numbers drop off. The Rock lost almost 4,000 fans per game between 2009-2015 while the Bandits fell from over 17,095 in 2011 to 14,316 in 2015. The Wings shed about a thousand fans per season every year from 2009-2014, at which point things were bad enough that they relocated the franchise to New England, a move that nearly halved their numbers again. They have subsequently moved to Albany where attendance remains well below the league average, in spite of the fact that the team is pretty good.
Meanwhile, the Rock have now abandoned Scotiabank Arena, having spent a couple years playing in Hamilton where their crowds have stabilized but have not improved. And this year, they’ve moved yet again, making what is intended to be a temporary stop in Mississauga, at Paramount Fine Foods Centre, a venue whose capacity is around 5,000. The plan is to return to FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton once renovations are complete in late 2025.
Buffalo’s attendance numbers have stabilized since then and even increased in the last couple years, climbing back over 16,000 per game in 2024. And in fact, after the league stabilized at nine teams and started moving forward, attendance numbers on average grew steadily between 2015-2019, going from 8,970 to 9,596 per game.
And then COVID-19 hit partway through the 2020 season. Historically, NLL attendance totals grow as the season progresses, so things were trending in the right direction, but the league (and everything else) shut down, keeping them from hitting big end-of-season numbers. The entire 2021 season was wiped out due to the pandemic and when things finally got underway for the 2022 season, it seemed like some fans had forgotten about the NLL — drawing only 6,163 fans per game, the league had its weakest attendance figures in 20 years.
To the league’s credit, they’ve worked hard to build their fan base back up since then. Average attendance has indeed improved in consecutive years. But the newer franchises have done poorly. The new Philly Wings are slightly better than where they were in 2014 when they decided to move, but well short of where they were in their glory years. The new Rochester Knighthawks are bringing in a thousand fans fewer per game than the previous iteration, although the Halifax Thunderbirds — the old K’Hawks — have done reasonably well so far.
But creative marketing has not attracted audiences to San Diego to watch the Seals, who drew just 4,667 fans per game last season. The Las Vegas Desert Dogs have actually seen some fan growth in their first two years, getting up to 6,350 fans per game in 2024, but that’s still a thousand under the league average and they’re already at capacity for their venue.
And then there’s the New York Riptide and the Panther City Lacrosse Club. The Riptide announced their planned move to Ottawa a week after posting their best attendance of the season (6,437) and, unsurprisingly, the audience stayed away for the final three games, averaging just 4,918 fans in those games. PCLC, meanwhile, did okay for attendance in their first season, at just over 4,000 per game, but those numbers dropped off badly in 2023 and 2024, to 2,813 and 2,704 per game, respectively. Those are, by far, the worst attendance figures by an NLL franchise in the past two decades and the team folded abruptly, just before the free agency period began for the league.
I continue to have concerns about San Diego and Albany. The Seals drew fewer fans per game last season than New York. And Albany’s numbers are quite a bit worse. This in spite of the fact that San Diego finished in second place last year, while Albany finished third — these are two exciting, entertaining teams that simply aren’t pulling big attendance numbers to their venues that both are capable of holding more than 16,000 fans. Whether or not they can turn the corner and get their local audiences to get excited about the product remains to be seen. But it’s possible that they might not get to wait too much longer if the teams are struggling financially.
And then there’s the question of the Ottawa Black Bears. Ottawa hasn’t had an NLL team since the Rebel moved to Edmonton after the 2003 season. And their home arena, Canadian Tire Centre, already has a reputation for being located in a place that Ottawa fans don’t like travelling to — just ask the NHL’s Senators. Can they draw better than the Riptide did? Time will tell, but a glance at their ticket-ordering site suggests they aren’t even opening the upper bowl, so they’re only aiming for 9,000 fans at most.
I’m not saying this is all doom and gloom. Buffalo, Colorado, and Calgary are all pulling more than 10,000 fans per game. Vancouver historically has been a tough market to crack, but the Warriors are drawing over 8,000 per game, which is above the league average and that number has been increasing year-over-year. But there are a handful of teams at the bottom that simply might not have enough local interest to survive.
