NLL Season 35 preview
We are still months away from the start of the 35th National Lacrosse League season, however though the league front office couldn't hold out the open secret that the league was going to double the size of the league starting in the 35th season. It was known that season 35 was going to see thirty-two teams take the field, but what was not known was which teams were going to take the field, now we do in fact know.
Port Salem Seahawks
Rock City Destroyers
Clayton Lions [1]
Fremont Warriors
Dalson Wildcats [1]
Hampton Eagles [1]
Vinton Cougars
University Heights Jaguars
Bentendorf Spartans [1]
Mt. Vernon Bulls [1]
Xavier Bears
Montana City Stallions [1]
Unolia Avalanche [1]
Legalese City Crusaders [1]
River City Bandits
Baystom Bombers
Every team listed was once part of the NLL before re-structuring more than five years ago. The franchise many will be very pleased to see is the Port Salem Seahawks, who before they were forced to suspend operations before season 28, which angered many fans and supporters of the NLL. In season 27 the Seahawks had won their fifth league title and had average attendance per-game around 38,000, then league commissioner Dan Devine was harshly criticized for his move to force the sale of the Seahawks and place it under league ownership. Less than a month after the forced sale the league announced that the sehawks would not be returning for the 29th season, so we can easily image that many Hawk fans will be celebrating this decision.
Several of the teams that will take the field once again as detonated with [1], are communities with a population fewer than 30,000. Now during the height of the NLL of the 56 teams playing 34 of them were in fact communities with a population of 35,000 and fewer, yet many of these teams would average over 10,000 per-game. The smallest community that had a NLL franchise was Unolia (pop: 1,341) a village in the Calia Alps located in north west Alkoul or 59 miles north of Willington. Even though the Avalanche would still average about 3,500 fans per-game between season 15 till they too were forced to suspend operation before season 26.
Current league commissioner William Finstein said that the league over the next three years will be in the process of making the NLL the worlds largest once more. By season 38 he expects that the league will be expanded to 64 teams which will be divided into four conferences each of 16 teams. Finstien said that the playoff structure will be changed, instead of seven playoff spots starting next season their will now be eight spots in the playoffs.
Fiances from last season showed that the league made a profit of $16.9 million and averaged 32,890 fans per-game during the regular season and had a tv viewership around 7.8 million. During the playoffs average attendance was 39,700 and for the title game in St. Johns the attendance was 47,981. Tv viewership for the playoffs was 8.2 million.