The Chaos Lacrosse Club was one of the founder teams in the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL).
The Chaos team is not a franchise with separate owners. Instead, the club belongs to the Premier Lacrosse League which is owned by a group of investors.
This article explains the ownership structure of the Chaos club and gives a rundown of the main shareholders.
Who Owns The Chaos Lacrosse Team In The PLL?
The Chaos Lacrosse Club is owned by Premier Lacrosse League, inc.
It is one of eight professional teams in common ownership by PLL, a private company with significant investment from shareholders including:
- Paul and Mike Rabil (co-founders)
- David O’Connor
- Sol Kumin
- Fortress Investment Group
- Blum Capital
- CAA Sports
- Chernin Group
- Raine Group
- Joe Tsai
- Kraft Group
- Bolt Ventures
- Chris Hogan
- Harris Blitzer Entertainment Group
This list doesn’t include all the minority shareholders, but these are the main funders.
All players in the league also have some equity in the holding company. The level of their ownership stakes hasn’t been made public.
Paul and Mike Rabil founded the PLL in 2018 and brought in a range of investors as co-owners of Chaos and the other clubs.
It’s interesting that some of the investment firms have decision-makers who played lacrosse in college. This article takes a closer look at three of them.
David O’Connor, Minority Owner And Former Agent
David O’Connor played lacrosse at Dartmouth College in the late seventies. He was a four-year letterman.
When he left college, he went to work at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), another investor on this list. He started in the mailroom and worked his way up.
During his time as an agent, “Doc” O’Connor represented film stars like Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Eddie Murphy. When the original founders left CAA, he was one of the executives who took over the company.
Doc O’Connor was a key in carving out a sports division within CAA. He presided over the launch of CAA Sports in 2006.
But O’Connor had left CAA Sports several years before that company would invest in the PLL.
He departed to become President of MSG, the company that owns Madison Square Garden. His tenure didn’t last long. The industry was surprised when he left abruptly two years later.
But O’Connor was compensated handsomely during his time at MSG. At the time, he was considered to be the highest-paid CEO in the United States.
It’s estimated that he made over $50 million. Not bad for a couple of years’ work.
Doc joined with other investors to start a new investment company called Arctos. They raised more than $2 billion for their flagship fund.
O’Connor and Arctos have taken ownership stakes in sporting targets including:
- Boston Red Sox
- Liverpool Football Club
- Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings in the NBA
That storied roster is joined by the Chaos Lacrosse Club and other teams in the league. As well as part ownership, Doc O’Connor is on the advisory board of the PLL.
Sol Kumin, Minority Owner
Sol Kumin grew up in Massachusetts and studied at John Hopkins in the late nineties. He played attack for the Blue Jays.
After Kumin graduated, he worked for several asset management firms. Eventually, he started his own hedge fund and raised $1 billion.
Before Kumin developed an interest in investing in lacrosse, he got involved in horse racing. He bought his first horse in 2014, the same year he started his hedge fund.
His stable has had a string of successes on the track, including:
- Justify winning the Kentucky Derby in 2018
- Monomoy Girl winning the Kentucky Oats the same year (the first double in 66 years)
- Authentic winning the Derby and the Breeders Cup in 2020
The PLL and the Chaos team aren’t the only ownership stakes that Kumin has taken in the sport of lacrosse.
He joined an ownership group to purchase the New England Black Wolves from the National Lacrosse League in 2021.
Fortress Investment Group, Minority Owner
The two stakeholders we’ve discussed have taken ownership through their own funds.
Fortress Investment Group is an equity firm based in New York. They have had many accolades for their investments but have also made some odd choices.
They loaned $100 million to Theranos to keep that disastrous company afloat. They also lost millions by purchasing fraudulent promissory notes from a Ponzi scamster.
You might be thinking that those problems have nothing to do with their sporting wing, and you’d be right. But the company made a mess of financing the athletes’ village for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Hey, that was a long time ago.
Drew McKnight is the managing partner who took a keen interest in the PLL when he was approached about investment.
McKnight played lacrosse at the University of Virginia in the late nineties and early 2000s. He played attack for the Cavaliers and was a two-time All-American.
Nearly twenty years later, he steered his company to part ownership of the Chaos Lacrosse Club and the other teams in the PLL.
McKnight averaged 2.6 goals per game. He was a member of the Championship team that took the NCAA title in 1999.
Brett Jefferson, Minority Owner
Brett Jefferson likes to say that lacrosse put him on his path to success. He struggled academically in school but found how to marshall discipline and ambition on the lacrosse field.
Roy Simmons Jr., the coach at Syracuse University for 27 years, spotted Jefferson and persuaded him to join the New York institution. Jefferson was a goalie on the university lacrosse team.
When he graduated, he went into the world of structured financing. He eventually founded his own asset management firm, Hildene Capital Management.
Jefferson has given over two million dollars to the Syracuse lacrosse program.
For info on other investors, check out our full review of who owns the Premier Lacrosse League.
