Public Relation Research on the Premier Lacrosse League
The Premier Lacrosse League
Emily Bernstein
Mini Assignment #1
September 23, 2020
Situational Analysis & Brief History
The Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) debuted their first season on June 1st of 2019. The history of this league starts with the way it began. Former Major League Lacrosse(MLL) player Paul Rabil, connected with his brother Mike Rabil to start a new league that gave athletes more media coverage, new wages and health coverage, because he did not get that with the MLL. They had a very successful first season. Their uniqueness was bottled out of being a 14-week tour based schedule where all six teams traveled to major cities from the East to the West coast to play in one big tournament for an audience to watch every team in the league play.
Their second season was impacted greatly by the Covid-19 pandemic, which through a PR perspective was a crisis that needed to be solved. After the cancelation of various professional sports, the PLL was the first to announce that they were going to still have a second season. They substituted their 14-week schedule for a fanless 14 day Championship Series, or in terms of slogans, “Battle for the Crown.” One of the biggest additions to their second season was adding a seventh team to their league. The Waterdogs had their debut in the Championship series. The series took place in Salt Lake Utah with no fans in person, but a virtual fan base of support. Not only was this series partnered with NBC Gold to stream every game for $20, but took place on NBC sports during the time period of what would have been the 2020 Olympics.
Getting to be broadcasted like that was a huge advantage for this league due to fans being deprived of sports and tuning in even when they knew nothing about lacrosse, but wanted to watch a good game. That is exactly what the PLL gave, given the two Championship games were won back to back years by the PLL Whipsnakes.
Problem Statement
The next steps for the PLL ideally is to reach a future fan base of those who do not know the sport. There needs to be a tie into welcoming new fans as well as keeping it interesting for those who already follow the league. The question for them is how will they approach the situation.
SWOT Analysis & Competitors
- Strength: The PLL has a very active engagement through social media posts. Their teams and their league instagram use a wide variety of infographics, videos and photos with load colors that give the audience a excitement feeling when they see their content. They are very active in media coverage for their athletes and are active mostly on twitter, youtube, podcasts and instagram.
- Weakness: In the big picture of things, the weakness would be the familiarity people are with the sport and reaching out to a bigger audience than the fan base itself. It is one of the oldest sports in America but does not get the media coverage it deserves on a larger scale compared to leagues like the NFl, MLB and NFL. They need to reach more work on getting an external audience in addition to what they have been doing by keeping their internal audience engaged. It also mostly targets a male younger audience of future lacrosse players with clothing and has little options for 50+ and women.
- Opportunities: What I referred to above with the advantage of the 2020 Olympics being cancelled they were given the chance to be broadcasted on NBC Sports that week. This gathered desperate fans who were deprived of sports, due to the pandemic, to tune in. The audience growth was insane. Bars and Public places/restaurants had lacrosse on their big screens for one of the first times, because nothing else was going on. The only issue was there were die hard fans and there was an audience tuning in for a good game with little to no lacrosse knowledge. The opportunity I seek for the league is to educate the people who know nothing about lacrosse and share the history or the rules of the game in a creative way to keep that audience involved and supporting the league.
- Threats: The only other professional men’s lacrosse league is the MLL, Major League Lacrosse. The reason why the PLL was started was to have additions that the MLL did not provide. One being new wages. The MLL was having their athletes pay so low that they had to work second jobs to support themselves and families to be able to play the sport they love. The PLL gave their athletes a higher pay to let them focus and be fully invested in the sport and make it a profession. The competition aspect comes out of how known and long the leagues have been going on. The PLL has only been through two seasons when the MLL has been going on for 19 years. The threats are the loyalty of fans or the trustworthiness of a league that has been around longer. There are other leagues like the National Lacrosse League, however it is box lacrosse and a different style as well as Women’s Lacrosse has their own brand. The threat would be the competitors, however the sport is growing from East to West. A lot of the consumers are there for a good game, but have not yet taken the leap to be loyal to a team and hold season tickets and the attendance varies in a normal season.
The competitors include Major League Lacrosse and professional sports as a whole for media coverage and deals for broadcast time on air.
Market Share
According to an article on the PLL’s website, they documented the “Year Over Year” growth on viewership from the Championship Series over the pandemic summer. The Championship Game alone brought in a “Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 340,000 viewers on NBC,” which outperformed their inaugural Championship Game by 23%. The lacrosse community is rising, growing and hungry for a good game performed by the best of the best in the world. Having NBC and NBCSN broadcasting the PLL Championship series, all 14 “combined broadcasts averaged 153,000 Total Viewed,” as well as increased 33% over the 2019 season.
On the PitchBook website, it says that the league has a total of eleven investors.
This particular link, if you click on it shows the PR perspective of how they approached the crisis of the pandemic and made it into a resolution. I was unable to find any graphs or analytics besides these examples on the web.
Messages, Themes, Slogans
When the league started the slogan often used was, “The Future of Lacrosse.” The initiative was to be proactive with the younger generation and took part in community service events that revolved around putting a stick in hand. The PLL is motivated to give the sport more attention and by growing it larger than just the East Coast. Something unique is that the fans, staff and players are very inclusive and give off a supportive and welcoming environment. For example, you do not see NFL or NBA athletes walking around with a shirt or hat that just says, NFL or NBA. You see those players wearing their jerseys or team logos not the league itself. The PLL is so supportive and proud of its league the players not only wear their logos and jerseys, but wear gear that just says PLL to represent how proud they are to be a part of it. Another fun slogan they used was, “Battle for the Crown,” in correlation to the Championship Series. A big theme was the back-to-back champions, the Whipsnakes won both of the PLL championship games for the first two seasons of the league and the extent of the league’s existence. The PLL made a mini movie series called “Back to Back,” to celebrate and continue the victory and legacy of their team, as well as feed the viewers more engaging content for the off season.
Media Channels & Usage & Target Audience
- Instagram: This platform is organized to be very engaging and entertaining with their viewers. Each team has a profile as well as the league and other fun PLL memes or player stats. Since the league is still small, they are able to interact with their fans more and make it more personal and it is catered to a younger audience. The pages post at least once a day, sometimes even more depending on the news that is being delivered, however, they do not post in a way that is intrusive or annoying. It is enjoyable for all eyes, but definitely draws in younger audiences with their bright colors and fun videos and questions.
- Twitter: Twitter is the most popular branding for the sports world and industry. It is a way to tweet anything and everything with a word limit to captions to get the news out quick and concise. Their tweets include lots of infographics, and interactive questions for their audience to retweet and respond too. Twitter is for all audiences and is a quick news outlet to push out content right away and then wait for a print version to come out with the details and full story. They are also really good at retweeting their followers content and responding/ interacting.
- Youtube: This is probably one of their favorite outlets, because creating content and media coverage is a big part of why this league began in the first place. Paul Rabil makes lots of how-to videos and the content media team makes vlogs and mini movies, highlights and hype videos to always give the viewers something to watch in and out of season. Youtube is for all audiences, because it has been around for so long and super quick and easy to use despite the age.
- Facebook: As most millennials know, this platform is more for the older generation. It is the Instagram of the adults. The page is not posted on as often, but still gives the news when needed be. This is used for information for parents of the younger generation, information of the league and for groups to connect with the audience.
Demographics
The demographics of this start up league speaks for itself. It is revolutionary. Lacrosse has been stereotyped for years as a rich East Coast sport. The PLL shifted gears to bring the league through a new 14-week tour based schedule every year to new cities in new states across the United States. They are bringing lacrosse to places lacrosse was never known before and sharing their love of the sport. The demographics range from every state.
Psychographics, External, Internal
Their audience comes together over one common theme. The game of Lacrosse. There are people who have never played the sport, but love the back and forth pacing of basketball, similar rules to hockey by playing behind the goal, the hand-eye coordination of baseball and the physical contact of football all in one sport for an entertaining game. Other audience members include the future of lacrosse, in other words young kids loving the sport and needing professional role models to keep them inspired. Along with college students who are entering the world of professional lacrosse. Another example would be the Iroquois Indian tribe community, because they founded the sport itself. Even sports reporters are interested in the growing sport. Everyone is from different backgrounds, but has some tie to the sport itself. Their audience enjoys a fast pace sports game, interaction, exciting video content and a lifestyle of role models and support.
Sources Links
https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/265483-72#investors
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFIOzU_BEOg/
https://librisblog.photoshelter.com/pll-fan-engagement-with-libris-and-greenfly/
