The Georgia Swarm has been through three incarnations as a franchise in the National Lacrosse League.
The team has had three changes of ownership. The current owners moved the franchise from Minnesota to Georgia.
Who Currently Owns The Swarm In The NLL?
The Georgia Swarm is owned by John Arlotta and his son Andy Arlotta. John Arlotta purchased the franchise in 2008 when it was the Minnesota Swarm. He brought his son in as co-owner and full-time staff member.
John Arlotta amassed his fortune in a long career in the healthcare industry.
Let’s look at his career in more detail.
How John J Arlotta Made His Millions
John Arlotta graduated from the University Of Notre Dame in 1971 and went into health care sales.
He rose up the management ranks in several health care companies. By 1995, Arlotta was the President of Caremark, a publicly traded pharma. The company grew massively in revenue and valuation over the next five years.
In 2003, Arlotta moved to Baltimore to head up NeighborCare, a company providing pharma products to nursing homes. He took the company public at the end of the year. Two years later NeigbhorCare was purchased in a takeover.
At this point, Arlotta would have accumulated significant wealth.
He moved in 2005 to Denver to become Chairman of Coram, another healthcare company. Three years later, the company merged with Apria Healthcare.
John Arlotta decided to retire with his wife to Colorado. But the high-powered businessman needed something to occupy his time.
John’s wife Bobbie had played lacrosse and field hockey in college. But John had been into football and basketball. He didn’t know much about the stick sport.
So, why did he buy a lacrosse team?
How John Arlotta Fell In Love With Lacrosse
When Arlotta was Chairman of NeighborCare in Baltimore, the company was renting office space from a Maryland developer named David Cordish.
Cordish had played lacrosse at Johns Hopkins and was the lead donor for the Cordish Lacrosse Center at the university.
He brought Arlotta to watch the Blue Jays and the healthcare businessman says he was instantly hooked.
It’s strategically very much like basketball and it’s fast-paced, and yet it’s very hard-hitting like in football and hockey.
It’s a combination of all those things and because of that, I loved it.
It wasn’t just like watching one sport. It was like watching a bunch of sports.
John Arlotta, interviewed in 2013
Arlotta followed the Blue Jays until he moved to Denver to become Chairman of Coram.
During his three year tenure there, he and his wife Bobbie would go to lacrosse matches if Notre Dame were playing close enough to travel.
When Arlotta retired in 2008, he had already got financially involved to some degree with lacrosse.
He and his wife Bobbie were the lead donors to build a new lacrosse center at Notre Dame University. Their pledge was announced in 2007.
Bob Naegele Jr, First Owner
Now that we’ve got to the mid-2000s, we can take a quick look at the first owner of the Minnesota Swarm.
The late Bob Naegele Jr inherited his father’s advertising business. He had been a goaltender in school and college hockey, and wend into the sports industry by setting up Rollerblade, the rollerskate manufacturer.
He sold his stake in Rollerblade in 1995, and set up a group of investors to purchase an NHL expansion franchise for Minnesota. That team the Minnesota Wild.
Naegele formed a company called Minnesota Sports & Entertainment to operate the team and other sports ventures. The interests included an arena, the Xcel Energy Center.
From Montreal Express to Minnesota Swarm
In 2005, Naegele’s company picked up a defunct lacrosse franchise.
The lacrosse team had been called the Montreal Express and played for one season in the National Lacrosse League. They had a successful 2002 season but didn’t play in 2003 or 2004.
The NLL sold the franchise to Minnesota Sports & Entertainment who relocated and rebranded the team as the Minnesota Swarm.
The lacrosse team played in the Xcel Energy Center.
Craig Leopold, Second And Brief Owner
Meanwhile in 2008, Craig Leopold was looking to buy another hockey team.
The businessman had recently sold the Nashville Predators, and now had his eye on the Minnesota Wild.
But Leopold had a minor headache. The hockey team came bundled with the lacrosse franchise.
Craig Leopold had no interest in lacrosse. He reached out to his old friend John Arlotta to see if he’d be interested in taking the Minnesota Swarm off his hands.
He got Arlotta at just the right time. The retired businessman was looking for something to get his teeth into.
John Arlotta Buys The Minnesota Swarm
In 2008, John Arlotta agreed to purchase the Minnesota Swarm from Craig Leopold. The announcement was made in July.
Arlotta brought his son Andy into the ownership structure. While Arlotta Senior was a part-time manager, Andy Arlotta worked fulltime with the team from the start.
Let’s take a quick look at the younger Arlotta.
Andy Arlotta, Co-Owner
Andy Arlotta attended Northern Illinois University where he was a member of the wrestling team. He also made the U.S. national team in 1997. He graduated in 1999.
John Arlotta didn’t want his children to work in his own companies. But Andy at least followed his father into the healthcare industry.
He worked for several years for Beverley Enterprises, a chain of nursing home providers. His next role was with Managed Healthcare Associates, providing a group-purchasing scheme for pharmacies.
When he joined the ownership team at the Swarm, his first roles were in sales and sponsorship management.
As his experience grew, he took a more senior role in steering the team’s future.
John Arlotta “Unretires”
Despite having a lacrosse franchise to manage, John Arlotta was finding retirement from business a little tedious.
He came out of retirement in 2012 to become the CEO of CareCore National, another healthcare company. Two years later, he steered a company merger and renaming to eviCore Healthcare.
This company was purchased by the giant Express Scripts in 2017. This healthcare giant has revenue of over $100 billion.
The Arlottas Rebrand The Team As The Georgia Swarm
When Bob Naegele Jr owned the lacrosse team in Minnnesota, he also owned the arena in which it played.
But when the Arlottas purchased the Swarm, they didn’t get the arena with it. In 2015, the Xcel Energy Center wanted to raise the fees in order to renew the contract with the Arlottas.
John Arlotta announced that he had started looking for an alternate home for the team.
The following year, the Arlottas relocated the team to Duluth, Georgia.
The team was rebranded as the Georgia Swarm for the 2016 NLL season.
