The NLL Is Heading Back To The Nassau Coliseum, Announce New Expansion Team In New York
NLL – The National Lacrosse League (NLL), the largest men’s professional indoor lacrosse league in North America, has announced expansion into the New York market under the ownership of live events and sports media entertainment company GF Sports and its affiliates (“GF Sports”). The team, which will begin play in 2019, will be the League’s 13th franchise and play its home games at the newly renovated NYCB LIVE, home of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
“We are thrilled to welcome GF Sports, New York, and the great Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (NYCB LIVE) on Long Island to the National Lacrosse League. As our 13th franchise, New York and the entire Metropolitan region represents our biggest market to date. Lacrosse is no stranger to this area, and we are very excited that this ownership and franchise will fuel the growth opportunity we know already exists here,” said NLL Commissioner Nick Sakiewicz. “GF Sports is another quality ownership group for the NLL and we know they will bring unrivaled excitement to one of the world’s premier sports markets. New York not only aligns perfectly with our strategic plan to grow in the US, but also brings professional lacrosse back to a region that so many fans had wished for.”
So before we even get started here, let’s just make sure we all get one thing abundantly clear. This team needs to be named the New York Saints or else we all riot. These suggestions the league has put out there already?
No offense or anything but they all suck. Beacons isn’t a real thing. The Force sounds like a club softball team, not that there’s anything wrong with that. And the Riptide just makes me think of the old MLL team in Los Angeles. Can’t do that. The only other acceptable option besides the Saints would be to bring back the New York Titans. But still. It’s the same thing like when the league announced that a team was coming back to Philly and the only acceptable team name option was the Wings. You can’t have a team in the Coliseum and call them the Beacons or the Froce or the Riptide. It just wouldn’t feel right. So BRING BACK THE SAINTS. You can do your part by writing in the Saints on the team name survey right here.
But yeah. The NLL has now expanded to 13 teams after finishing up last season with only 9 in the league. Over the past 12 or so months, the league has announced an expansion team in San Diego, an expansion team in Philadelphia, have relocated the Rochester Knighthawks up to Halifax and are putting a new expansion team in Rochester, and now another expansion team on Long Island. 4 new teams and this is only the first big wave of expansion in the league. There are still plans for a few more within the next couple of years and the league eventually wants to make it up to at least 20 relatively soon.
So now there are a couple of things to mention here. For starters–I know that a lot of people are going to start to worry about the dilution of talent in the NLL. But before you start to get too worried, just take a look at what happens this year in San Diego and Philadelphia. There are going to be quite a few guys making their first real appearance in the box game like Matt Rambo and Trevor Baptiste and Connor Kelly. Obviously their box skills aren’t going to be as refined as the Canadians who have been playing their entire lives but I think these guys are going to fit in right away. We saw it happen with guys like Tom Schreiber and Kieran McArdle. More Americans are starting to gravitate toward box and with all these new roster spots available, there is room for the game to really take off here in America. Also keep in mind that there are already a ton of Canadians who are talented enough to play at the NLL level but just never got an opportunity to because roster spots were so limited. If the league was expanding from 29 to 33 teams, then I’d start to worry about watering town the talent a little bit. But to go from 9 teams to 13? There are definitely 13 teams full of guys who can absolutely ball out there so you don’t need to worry about the on-field talent taking a hit.
The other thing to talk about is just how much this means for the sport. Expansion doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s not like the NLL just woke up one day and had 4 new teams. The only way for expansion to work is for people to realize that the market is there and to view it as an investment where they can make some profit in return. These are rich, successful people. Guys like Joseph Tsai and Terry Pegula. Companies like Comcast and GF Sports. Basically what I’m saying is that if rich and successful individuals/companies see the sport of lacrosse as a marketplace that is taking off and the NLL is a league they can make money in, well I’d trust their opinions about 100000% more than some dumbass in the comment section who is sitting on their computer with a shirt stained with BBQ sauce typing “nobody cares about lacrosse”. Successful people know there is money to be made in lacrosse and that it’s taking off. Absolute fucking pigeons just decide to shit on lacrosse in internet comment sections because they don’t have anything better to do with their lives.
So long story short. The NLL is going back to New York and the team NEEDS to be named the Saints. You don’t have to worry about the talent pool getting watered down because the amount of talent in lacrosse is higher now than it’s ever been before. And rich/successful business people are watching and investing into the NLL because they know that this is the sport of the future. There’s never been a better time to be a fan of lacrosse and I just feel truly horrible for the haters and losers. Of which there are many, but they are slowly dying away.