Times are not the best in the National Lacrosse League. The Minnesota Swarm are on the move, less than a year after the Philadelphia Wings made a similar announcement. The future of the Edmonton Rush is also in flux after a strange week of comments and combat for their owner Bruce Urban.
Where the Swarm end up has been a hot debate. A popular destination via rumor has been Nashville, with the pipe dream of being owned by the NHL’s Predators. Barring that arena, other markets discussed have been Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, and Winnipeg.
Milwaukee has arena concerns of their own. Tampa Bay has multiple tenets with the NHL Lightning and the arena football Storm. Winnipeg’s MTS Centre has added the AHL Manitoba Moose to their fold, leaving dates harder to come by.
Other than Nashville, none of these destinations feel terrific, and a smaller market might just emerge.
Meanwhile, the rumored final resting spot for the Rush has been Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a much smaller market than northern Alberta.
One possible concerning trend remains; the NLL is becoming a small market league, with smaller arenas and smaller cities.
We’ve seen it a few times over the past years. Philadelphia moved to Uncansville, Connecticut. The Vancouver Stealth continued to downgrade from San Jose, to Everett, to finally Langley, British Columbia.
Other than Buffalo, Calgary, and Colorado, the NHL owned teams, the league has historically struggled to draw in bigger markets. Toronto, not an NHL owned team, still plays at the Air Canada Centre and manages to survive at a decent clip, but being a big lacrosse market anyways, if any team can survive on their own, its them.
From there? Rochester, one of the oldest teams in the league after forming in 1995, has a small stadium in Blue Cross Arena. New England has played just one season and Vancouver a couple. The only other small market teams, Minnesota and Edmonton, have or will be failing.
They play in NHL arenas, but without NHL support, have not been able to soar. Minnesota was owned by the Wild before being sold to the Arlottas, and the Oilers have attempted to buy the Rush to no avail, other than more frustration building up with that franchise.
Does the success of the NLL now rest on small arena teams? If Minnesota moves to Nashville to be bought by the Predators, that could be seen as progress. If the Oilers somehow swoop in and save the Rush, even better. That could set the league in a more positive direction with assistance from the larger league.
What’s more likely is a small market for the Swarm and the Rush in Saskatoon. Which would bring the league to its largest collection of small market teams, and also creates quite a gap between the top and the bottom of the league. Three NHL owned teams, one solid team in Toronto, and four small market teams with tiny arenas.
New England has always had a chance to succeed being owned by a casino, but its not like their attendance was other worldly. Vancouver has such a terrific deal with the Langley Events Centre that they can’t lose money. Rochester’s owner Curt Styres is one of the most stable in the league and that team has always done well.
But yet, how many more small markets can keep the league afloat and viable? As it is, just nine teams remain in such diverse markets its hard to keep track of the NLL’s game plan. Just what do they want to be; the best representation of professional lacrosse, filling stadiums; a small market league just getting by; or a combination of both?
