The Chrome Lacrosse Club was one of the founder teams in the new Premier Lacrosse League (PLL).
Teams in the PLL don’t have a single ownership group. Instead, all teams belong to the league and the PLL is owned by a group of investors.
If that seems complicated, we’ll break it down clearly in this article. I’ll also look in detail at some interesting co-owners of Chrome.
Who Owns The Chrome Lacrosse Team In The PLL?
The Chrome Lacrosse Team 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:
- Mike and Paul Rabil (co-founders)
- Wes Adams and Fortress Investment Group
- Joe Tsai
- Arctos and David “Doc” O’Connor
- Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment
- Chernin Group
- Raine Group
- Blum Capital
- CAA Sports
- Chris Hogan
- Kraft Group
- Sol Kumin
All players in the league also have some equity in the holding company. The level of their ownership stakes hasn’t been made public.
I won’t go into detail about all the owners of Chrome in the list above. Instead, I’ll focus on three that have something in common: they also own other major sports franchises.
Wes Edens And Fortress Investment Group
Fortress Investment Group is an equity firm that has had plenty of ups and downs in their investment choices.
I get into that in a little more detail when writing about them in the article on the ownership of Chaos.
But here, I’m going to focus on Wes Edens, one of the co-founders of the firm. That’s because of his investment in other sports franchises.
Some of the investors in the PLL played lacrosse in college, but Edens was a talented skier as a young man. His first job was in finance at Lehman Brothers and then he moved to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.
Wes Edens founded Fortress Investment Group in 1998 with four other partners. Eight years later, a Japanese company bought 15% of the company. That made Edens a billionaire on paper.
Edens and the Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks are an NBA team in the Eastern Conference.
Herb Kohl, a former US Senator and co-owner of the Kohl’s department stores, bought the franchise back in 1985 to stop it from leaving Milwaukee.
He would turn down an offer from Michael Jordan in 2003 but decided to sell in 2014.
Wes Edens, and his partner Marc Lasry, bought the franchise for $550 million. Edens proceeded to build a new arena with a bigger capacity for the fans.
The team also improved on the court. The franchise now has a valuation of at least twice what Edens bought it for.
Joe Tsai, Minority Owner Of Chrome
Joe Tsai is a co-founder of Alibaba, the giant online retailer and equity investment firm.
The multi-billionaire played lacrosse in high school and during his studies at Yale University.
When Tsai was working in China for an American investment firm, he met Jack Ma who was preparing to launch Alibaba as a start-up online marketplace. That was 1999.
Tsai jumped on board and became Chief Financial Officer. Fifteen years later, Alibaba went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The valuation of $25B made history as the biggest IPO ever seen.
Joe Tsai became a multi-billionaire overnight.
Tsai and basketball
Like Wes Edens, Tsai invested in basketball.
The Nets franchise has gone through plenty of ownership changes. That included Jay-Z as a minority owner for about ten years.
By 2017, a Russian billionaire owned the Brooklyn Nets. Mikhail Prokhorov also built the Barclays Center as a new home for the franchise.
Joseph Tsai purchased a majority of shares in the Nets in 2019. He also picked up the Barclays Center for a song (I mean $1B).
But that’s not Tsai’s only interest in basketball.
He also owns a franchise in the WNBA. We’ve got the full details in our article on who owns The New York Liberty.
Investing in lacrosse
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) announced in 2017 that their new San Diego franchise was owned by Joe Tsai. It was a natural fit for Tsai who has a house in San Diego.
We have more details in our article the ownership of the San Diego Seals.
A year later, the Rabil brothers approached Tsai about getting their new professional league off the ground. Tsai was one of the early investors in the PLL.
Arctos Sports Partners, Minority Owner
Arctos is a private equity investment firm set up by several partners to focus on the sports industry.
One of the main drivers was a highly experienced film and sports agent named David “Doc” O’Connor.
When O’Connor was in college at Dartmouth, he played lacrosse and was a four-year letterman.
He joined Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a top agency for Hollywood stars. O’Connor represented stars like Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, and Robert Redford.
He was also key in creating the sports division within the company in 2006, when he launched CAA Sports.
CAA Sports is also an investor in the PLL, but they got involved after O’Connor had left the company.
Doc O’Connor took over as President of MSG (the owners of Madison Square Garden). He was only in the position for two years before he moved on to start Arctos with other investors.
Arctos raised over $2B in their initial rounds of investment.
Basketball and baseball
Like Joe Tsai and Wes Adams, Arctos invested in basketball.
They have stakes in two NBA franchises, the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings.
Arctos also have stakes in the Boston Red Sox.
Doc O’Connor’s college days at Dartmouth no doubt influenced his interest in the Premier Lacrosse Club.
The Chrome Lacrosse Club may be a much smaller franchise than the likes of the Red Sox, but they join those famous brands as being partly owned by Arctos.
Doc O’Connor is also on the advisory board of the PLL.
Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, Minority Owner
Did you know that one company owns both the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils? If you’re not familiar with the names, the former is in the NBA and the latter in the NHL.
Both sports franchises are owned by an investment group called Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment. The two investors who give the company its name are Josh Harris and David Blitzer.
Josh Harris also owns Bolt Ventures, which we’ve listed as another investor in Chrome and the rest of the PLL.
