The Whipsnakes Lacrosse Club won the first two titles in the new Premier Lacrosse League (PLL).
Is that because they have owners with deeper pockets than the other clubs in the PLL?
No, it’s not. The teams in this new lacrosse league don’t have separate owners. All clubs belong to the league itself, which is owned by a group of investors.
That is very different from the franchise model of the NFL or the NBA. We’ll explain the ownership structure of the Whipsnakes clearly in this article and describe the main shareholders.
Who Owns The Whipsnakes Lacrosse Team?
The Whipsnakes 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)
- Blum Capital
- Bolt Ventures
- CAA Sports
- Chernin Group
- Chris Hogan
- David O’Connor
- Fortress Investment Group
- Harris Blitzer Entertainment Group
- Joe Tsai
- Kraft Group
- Sol Kumin
- Raine Group
Paul and Mike Rabil are two brothers who co-founded the PLL in 2018. They quickly sought major investors to buy into the league.
Some investors were in at the start of the funding in 2018, and some came on board in later years.
All players in the league also have some equity in the holding company. The level of their ownership stakes hasn’t been made public.
The lengthy list of co-owners above doesn’t include all the minority shareholders. In this article, I’ll look at some of the more interesting owners of the Whipsnakes.
Chris Hogan, Minority Owner and Former Whipsnakes Player
Chris Hogan is far more well-known for his exploits as a wide receiver with the New England Patriots. The outstanding football player won two championship rings.
But Hogan was also an outstanding collegiate lacrosse player. He was captain of the lacrosse team at Penn State University. Throughout his playing days in the NFL, Hogan often spoke proudly of being a former lacrosse player.
When the Rabil brothers were putting together their plans for the new lacrosse league, Hogan was one of the first potential investors they talked to.
But the NFL star took his interest one step further than any other significant investor. He was determined to win a place on one of the new teams and playing lacrosse again.
Hogan entered the PLL draft in February of 2021. But no team was prepared to take a chance on a guy who hadn’t played a competitive lacrosse match in years. Hogan wasn’t drafted.
That could have been the end of it, but the Cannons signed Hogan as the league got underway. He played one match for them against the Whipsnakes, who came out on top.
The Whipsnakes then signed Hogan as part of a transfer deal. Hogan only played one game for them before he left the league to return to the NFL.
That may go down in history as the last professional lacrosse match played by a player with two Super Bowl rings.
But Hogan isn’t unique in having that connection to the NFL. Indeed, he’s not the only owner with a connection to the Patriots! Let’s look at another investor who is involved with the New England NFL franchise.
Kraft Group, Minority Owner
The Kraft Group led a funding round in 2021 to raise more investment in the PLL.
This equity investment firm was founded by Robert Kraft, who also owns the New England Patriots.
Kraft bought the franchise in 1994 for 172 million dollars. It was an enormous amount at the time, and most sports experts thought it was a waste of an investment. The Patriots are now valued at 4.9 billion dollars.
When The Kraft Group backed the Premier Lacrosse League, he gave plenty of confidence to other investors in the venture.
It’s also true that the Kraft family has an older interest in the sport. Dan Kraft, one of Robert’s sons, was a goalie on the Tufts University lacrosse team in the eighties. He is now the president of several companies that are part of the Kraft Group.
Gillette Stadium
The Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, is the home of the Patriots. The Kraft Group also owns the stadium.
The Whipsnakes played their opening match at the Gillette Stadium for the first two seasons of the new league. There was a change-up in the opening hosts in 2022, but the high-profile playoffs are back in Foxborough.
My guess is that the PLL isn’t paying an arm and a leg for renting the fine stadium.
But Gillette Stadium has a long association with lacrosse. It has hosted five NCAA lacrosse championships. The first one was back in 2008 when nobody dreamed of a professional league.
Bryan Rosenblatt, Minority Owner
You probably know that the PLL is very focused on social media for marketing the league. Bryan Rosenblatt has an interesting background that may explain what attracted him to become a stakeholder.
Rosenblatt spent a couple of years at Twitter for their New York sales team. He left to join Reddit where he was Head of Sales for the East Coast.
During his time at Reddit, he founded a company to invest in small and early-stage start-ups.
Crunchbase lists Rosenblatt and Riverside Ventures as separate investors in the PLL, but the latter is the company that Rosenblatt founded.
He moved on from Reddit to join a massive investment firm called Craft Ventures. You may not have heard of this company, but you’ll probably know something about its founder, David O. Sacks.
Sacks was COO of PayPal when it was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion. He founded Yammer, which was bought by Microsoft for $1.2 billion.
Rosenblatt became a Partner at Sacks investment firm in under three years after joining.
