The Denver Outlaws Are Coming To The Premier Lacrosse League. How The Move Benefits The League, And What It Could Mean For Future Expansion.
The Denver Outlaws are returning to professional lacrosse for the first time since 2020, replacing the Chrome Lacrosse Club in the Premier Lacrosse League, as the league’s eight teams are assigned permanent home bases.
The cat is finally out of the bag as to where each Premier Lacrosse League team will call home. After five seasons without home bases, something unheard of in the professional sports world, the PLL released where each team will be located last week, along with new logos, redesigns for each of the clubs, the implementation of a Western and Eastern Conference, and a renewed excitement for fans across the league.
Each conference will feature four teams that will compete for the Eastern and Western Conference Championships, with the top teams in each conference facing off against each other in the championship game. The Eastern Conference consists of the New York Atlas, Boston Cannons, Maryland Whipsnakes, and the Philadelphia Waterdogs. Competing in the Western Conference are the California Redwoods, Utah Archers, Denver Outlaws, and the Carolina Chaos who will be based in Charlotte (I mean, Charlotte is in the western part of North Carolina right?).
With two former MLL teams now being implemented into the PLL, it raises the question: When will the remaining MLL teams come onto the PLL scene? With the PLL replacing one of their original six franchises to make room for the Outlaws, it seems like it’s only a matter of time until they find a way to implement teams like the Rattlers, or the Bayhawks, both of which were fan favorites. Chesapeake and Dallas weren’t awarded a PLL team this go-round, but does leaving those locations open mean the PLL could explore bringing those franchises back later on down the line? They could, of course, bring them back to other locations, but the PLL is a league that is very intentional, and it’s hard to believe they’d leave those locations, and teams, available if they didn’t have future plans for them.
Bringing the Rattlers back to Dallas would help fill the void in middle America, as the current eight teams are largely on one side of the States or the other, with only the Outlaws and Archers in between, and even those teams are more so in the West. The Bayhawks returning to Chesapeake would bring those passionate Virginia lacrosse fans back to professional lacrosse, as they currently do not have a professional indoor or outdoor team. These teams are the easy ones to look at as possibilities, due to their former location staying available through the first round of location assignments, but there are still other former MLL teams that could be brought back in new places, and draw in an even larger fanbase.
One of the biggest complaints from fans regarding the current location assignments is that Minnesota didn’t receive a team. Minnesota, which was previously home to the now Georgia Swarm of the National Lacrosse League, has teams in all four major sports leagues and has that strong sports fan base that the PLL tends to look for. With a team like the New York Lizards, who weren’t carried over into the current-day PLL, still available to be used, Minnesota makes the most sense. The Atlas Lacrosse Club is now the New York Atlas, meaning the Lizards would have to find a new home, and bringing the Lizards to Minnesota checks off three main boxes future expansion needs: die-hard sports fans, diversified locations, and bringing back an iconic franchise lacrosse fans across the United States love, and are familiar with.
That being said, the PLL could also look at a place like Long Island, to create a new rivalry between the Atlas and Lizards, while simultaneously landing in a lacrosse hotbed in the northeastern United States.
Only time will tell if more MLL teams make the move into the PLL, but bringing the Outlaws back into the fold is a great sign of what’s to come for both the PLL and professional lacrosse as a whole.
