The Waterdogs Lacrosse Club was not part of the inaugural season of the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). The club was formed a year later to play in the 2019 season.
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 the Waterdogs.
Who Owns The Waterdogs Lacrosse Team In The PLL?
The Waterdogs 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)
- Chernin Group
- Raine Group
- Blum Capital
- CAA Sports
- Chris Hogan
- David O’Connor
- Fortress Investment Group
- Harris Blitzer
- Joe Tsai
- 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.
Some fans think that the Waterdogs is owned outright by Barstool Sport, which you don’t see on the list above. I’ll explain what’s going on in the next section.
Does Barstool Sports Own The Waterdogs?
Barstool Sports have a podcast and Youtube channel called Pardon My Take. In early 2020, they released a podcast and video titled “We Own A Lacrosse Team! Let’s Go Waterdogs.”
This was an interview with Paul Rabil, one of the co-founders of the PLL. Rabil was announcing the Waterdogs as the first expansion club, and his hosts behaved as if they were the sole owners.
But the PLL doesn’t work that way! What happened is that Rabil previously went on their show to ask the hosts to come up with a name for the new club.
So, the Barstool Sports guys named the Waterdogs. That doesn’t mean that they own the team outright.
However, they do have a minority stake in the Waterdogs in a roundabout way. That’s because of who owns Barstool Sports. Read on…
The Chernin Group, Minority Owner
The Chernin Group is a private investment company based in Los Angeles.
Peter Chernin was a top executive in media and entertainment companies for many years before he founded his own company in 2010.
As head of Twentieth Century Fox, Peter Chernin oversaw the production of blockbusters like Titanic and Avatar.
His new investment firm has also invested in big Hollywood films in recent years. The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is the most notable. When Chernin was with Fox, he oversaw their move into sports media by launching the Fox Sports network.
Chernin and Barstool Sports
Barstool has been around since 2003 when it started as a Boston magazine with gambling advertisements.
They moved online in 2007 and built their website, podcasting, and YouTube channels with a focus on sports betting.
In 2016, the Chernin Group bought a majority stake in Barstool Sports.
It’s not the only gambling-oriented business owned by the Chernin Group. The investment firm also set up The Action Network as another sports betting website.
In early 2020, the Chernin Group sold some of its stakes in Barstool Sports to a casino company, Penn National Gaming.
Barstool Sports and the Waterdogs
So, I said I’d explain how Barstool Sports owns the Waterdogs in a roundabout way.
It goes like this. Barstool has a minority owner in the Chernin Group who are minority owners in the PLL that owns the Waterdogs.
Got it? Good.
The Chernin Group isn’t the only investor in the PLL that has a substantial interest in sports betting. The Raine Group is also involved in the online betting industry.
The Raine Group, Minority Owner
The Raine Group was founded in 2009 by two investment bankers from Goldman Sachs and UBS who were coming out of the other end of the global financial crisis.
Raine is a combination of the names of Joe Ravitch (Goldman Sachs) and Jeff Sine (UBS). I think it’s also a play on the “make it rain” phrase.
Their company got into online sports betting in a big way when they invested in DraftKings.
DraftKings started as a small fantasy baseball competition run from the house of one of its founders in 2012. It grew within two years to become one of the largest daily fantasy sports companies.
Colin Neville was the head of sports investment at the Raine Group and he spotted the potential of the growing company. He led a funding round that closed at $41 million for the fantasy sports start-up. DraftKings is now listed on the Nasdaq and is worth over $8 billion.
Lacrosse connection
Neville is where the future connection with the PLL would come from. He had played lacrosse at Yale and was one of the first potential investors that the Rabil brothers approached in 2017/2018.
At the time, Paul and Mike Rabil weren’t intent on setting up a new league. They wanted to buy the Major Lacrosse League and restructure it.
The talks at the MLL headquarters dragged on for months. Colin Neville and other executives from the Raine Group were advising the brothers throughout those discussions.
When the Rabils decided to set up a new league, the Raine Group led the initial round of funding. Colin Neville is on the board of directors of the PLL.
What About The Other Investors?
We’ve only focused on a few investors in this article.
If you want background stories for the full list, check out our overview of owners of the PLL.
