November 17, 2011
Fail Blazers
Why pro box lacrosse missed in Boston
by Chuck Jaffe/
Pro indoor lacrosse has failed twice in Boston: the original Blazers, who played in the MILL from 1989-97, and the current Blazers, who played in the NLL. (photo: Mark Brodie/New England Lacrosse Journal)
In 2010, when the calendar hit September, the Boston Blazers were not just the talk of the lacrosse world, they were the envy of all sports. For the first time in the history of professional sports, a franchise would start its upcoming campaign with the three players who finished 1-2-3 in the prior season’s Most Valuable Player voting.
With Dan Dawson, Casey Powell and Josh Sanderson — all future Hall-of-Famers — up front and arguably the league’s best goalie in Anthony Cosmo in the back, the stage was set for a championship run.
Instead, a season of frustrations was followed by an offseason of financial concerns; by the time September rolled around in 2011, management was pulling the plug.
After failing to come to terms with Boston’s TD Garden — and unable to find a sweeter arena package from a smaller venue — the Blazers shut down for 2012, dispersing the roster to the rest of the league. Management said it hoped to return in 2013, although it acknowledged that might happen outside of New England; even if the team comes back, it will be starting from scratch.
It was a stunning turn of events for a franchise that returned to New England in 2009 with such promise, and it represents the second time that a professional box lacrosse team called the Boston Blazers has flamed out. The original Blazers — initially called the New England Blazers but renamed for Boston when the team moved from the Worcester Centrum to the Boston Garden — were part of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, which eventually became the National Lacrosse League. That team — related to the most recent franchise by name only — played from 1989 through 1997.
The failure of the new Blazers has diehard fans wondering what went wrong, and whether things could ever go right for Boston to have a successful pro box franchise. They’re curious about how the Blazers could fail when the Boston Cannons have been one of the few constants in the 11-year history of Major League Lacrosse, consistently drawing well and developing a fan base; while other field-lacrosse franchises came and went, the Cannons have built something strong, and can expect a significant boost in 2012 coming off the team’s first MLL title to raise the excitement level to fever pitch.
The Blazers, meanwhile, created a buzz and were building the fan base, but they appear to have run out of time just as ownership lost patience with a no-win financial situation.
Team and league officials mostly refused to discuss the behind-the-scenes situation with New England Lacrosse Journal, but it’s clear that many factors were at play. While the arena deal was the biggest issue, league conditions, revenue-sharing agreements and more were all part of the problem.
Strike one
While the new Blazers franchise was happy to accept the fan base and support of the original team, it was determined not to make the same mistakes.
That earlier team, however, was moving strongly in the right direction when it went dark under very different circumstances. When the original Blazers started, the league was centralized, meaning league founders in Kansas City owned every team; the full-time front office for the team initially was one marketing person.
Every team shared expenses — playing floors were trucked from one arena to the next, rather than each team having its own — and players were almost entirely local guys. The few travelers who played picked up their own costs and simply hoped to break even financially, playing mostly for the love of the game.
Playing a more-Americanized or field-lacrosse style, the team had some success, too, including a run to the finals in 1993.
“There were nights in Worcester when it was rocking, and others when there were maybe 2,000 people,” recalled Randy Fraser, who played for his father, Ron, on the initial incarnation of the Blazers and who was assistant coach and general manager with the new franchise. “We had a small-but-loyal fan base, things got even better when we moved to Boston — we even played one season in the new Garden — but the situation with the league just wasn’t right.”
Heading into 1998, the league was divesting, selling franchises to individual owners. Some teams, such as the Buffalo Bandits, had local ownership through pro sports teams like the Buffalo Sabres, but others — including the Blazers — were independent. Gone were the days of one marketing guy being the front office.
“None of the folks with the Celtics or Bruins — the people with the arena arrangements — were willing to be partners,” recalled Peter Schmitz, an original Blazer who has been president of the Professional Lacrosse Players Association since it was founded in the 1990s. “Things with the league were changing, and the players were on the verge of a strike; the ownership group got involved directly — rather than through a negotiator — and took the negotiations personally.”
Lacking a huge financial upside, the discord turned the entire deal sour; management shuttered the team but retained the rights, thus keeping a franchise from restarting in the area for years.
A working model
A few years after the initial Blazers folded, the Boston Cannons brought pro field lacrosse to the area and faced many of the same issues.
The Cannons had to start from scratch, build a front office and make it all work. The New England Revolution professional soccer team plays at Gillette Stadium — thanks largely to the fact that their owner also operates the New England Patriots — but the Cannons were vagabonds, playing first in Lowell, then moving to Boston University and finally on to Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Mass. Using local talent wherever possible, the team was able to minimize costs and build a fan following.
“Major League Lacrosse has maybe a bit more league-wide sponsorship (than the NLL), but basically we were looking at overcoming the same issues,” said a Cannons insider from the team’s early days. “Management had a clear picture of how it could succeed, and has stuck with it, building a little bit each year. Sure, people might wish for a bigger, better stadium or something, but the team is where it needs to be for this to work right now.”
Said MLL commissioner David Gross: “Pro sports, especially those that are niche in nature, are not easy by any stretch. In the MLL, we have spent 11 years clawing our way trying to break through. I don’t think anyone in our league believes that we have reached our goals yet and it will continue to take a massive effort to truly become mainstream.”
Strike two
When the latest version of the Blazers surfaced, the new ownership group believed it needed to be at TD Garden, a decision that may have doomed the franchise from the start.
Few people realize just how expensive the big, brand-name arenas are, but sources close to the team confirmed that the Blazers were paying roughly $40,000 per night just to get the building, a price that Garden insiders say represents a significant discount. That said, the team got no cut of concessions, parking or ancillary revenues.
Compare that to teams such as Buffalo, Colorado or Rochester, where ownership runs another team in the building — or owns the arena outright — so that they not only receive those ancillary revenues but also share front-office staffs, can get their apparel sold at the arena’s full-time shops and can do cross promotions and ticket deals. Teams can discount tickets more steeply or give away more tickets — hoping fans will return as paying customers — because they’ll get a cut of the food and parking money those fans spend at the game to make up for it.
Lacking those deals, the Blazers lived and died on ticket sales, which is tough when you are trying to build a fan base, attract them to a game that is different from the field version most are familiar with in an economy that has individuals and potential sponsors alike cutting back.
Without any revenue-sharing among the owners, road games are dead costs. Buffalo or Colorado might have had big crowds when the Blazers’ Big Three came to town last year, but Boston didn’t see a penny of that revenue. Further, deals that might have helped the Blazers cut costs — like a proposed league-wide workman’s compensation insurance contract that would have saved the franchise at least a night’s rent at the Garden — were killed because some teams had their own deals through their affiliated pro sports teams.
Lump in the costs of taking the team on the road, flying a bulk of the players in for games — something the team avoided in 2009 by giving players local housing — front-office expenses, player payrolls that run $350,000 to $400,000 for a season, arena and front-office costs and more, and an NLL team must generate $150,000 to $200,000 per home game to turn a profit.
Those factors have contributed to give the NLL a record of franchise instability; the 2012 season will represent the 17th consecutive year when the league does not start its slate with the same roster of teams that finished the preceding year.
National Lacrosse League commissioner George Daniel refused to comment for this story, and his spokesman said only, “We look forward to bringing the NLL back to New England in the future.”
In short, without concessions, parking and big sponsorship deals, the Blazers needed to sell 10,000 tickets at an average price of $15 to have a prayer of breaking even. While attendance was reported at more than 8,000 on average last season, insiders suggest the real number was closer to 6,500.
The business model changes based on the arena, which is why Blazers president Doug Reffue spent the summer looking for a new deal at a different building, but there’s a reason why the most successful and stable franchises are the ones that are run by the company that owns the building and one of its other tenants.
Blazers owner Tim Armstrong — the former Google executive who is now the top dog at America Online — knew the odds he was facing, but insiders say he was hoping the team could get a foothold, which would in turn lead to the better deal.
It never happened.
Diehard vs. casual fans
In an interview immediately after the franchise announced it was suspending operations, Reffue said that no sporting franchise can survive on diehard fans alone, and that the casual lacrosse fan in Boston just didn’t seem to appreciate what they were looking at.
“I never met anyone who came to the games and didn’t enjoy them, but I talked to plenty of people who said they hate box lacrosse because of the big goalies or the fighting or something else, and they never gave us a try,” Reffue said. “Whether you are looking at the Cannons or the Blazers, you are talking about the best players in the world, and a great value at the games. I don’t think you have to be a big box lacrosse fan to be able to appreciate great athletic entertainment. Not everyone who fills Fenway or the Garden is a big Sox or Bruins fan.”
Added Fraser: “I have had so many people come tell me they were sorry the Blazers had folded — people who knew about the team and who prove that we had done a good job of creating some awareness — but when I asked them how many games they had been to … it was maybe one, or that they were meaning to go but had never gotten there … in three years.”
A boring logo didn’t help either. Saul Davidson, who ran the first franchise’s fan club and was a member of the new team’s fan council, noted that the Blazers needed something that looked great and was instantly recognizable, making the fans want to wear team gear to help spread the word.
Jack Piatelli, an original Blazer who has been a broadcaster on Cannons and collegiate lacrosse games for years, says there is no way to pinpoint the problem.
“People say the box game isn’t lacrosse, but they’re just looking to find things that are wrong with it,” he said. “The music is too loud, the goalies are too big, there’s fighting, you don’t want to go into the city in the middle of winter … but there’s no better way than box lacrosse to develop your skills, and watching the best players in the world in any sport should be a draw. … Yes, we can say it’s all about the arena, but the truth is that the Blazers — and the Cannons, too — should be drawing more than 10,000 fans in a sports town like Boston.”
Down for the count?
Drawing crowds that big may not be an issue if the Blazers return in 2013 to a smaller venue with different economics. NLL rules on arena size could eliminate some possible destinations, such as Boston University’s Agganis Arena, while Reffue was still hoping to take another crack at the Garden.
But if a looming NBA basketball strike didn’t help with the Garden this year, former Blazer employees question why they should expect anything better now.
Reffue has told fans to expect word on the franchise’s future no later than February; it may not be the news the locals are hoping for. Davidson, for one, is thinking he may have a better chance of seeing the NALL — the new North American Lacrosse League, a semi-pro American outfit — than the NLL playing in New England any time soon.
Schmitz noted that it’s bad business practice “to upset your customer and then expect them to come back to them when you re-open. On the other hand, Boston is a huge, top-10 market, so you can’t dismiss it if you want to be part of the big leagues. … Somebody is going to try again here someday.”
Added Fraser: “Everything is in place to succeed here in box lacrosse, if you can negotiate the right deals, so I think someone will take another shot at it. Will they still call it the Blazers? I don’t know, because you could see us as a team that tried hard and played well and had fans, or you could see us as the franchise that failed twice.”
This article originally appeared in the November-December 2011 issue of New England Lacrosse Journal.
