Mll attendance. MLL vs PLL: Comparing Professional Lacrosse Leagues in 2019

How did the MLL and PLL compare in their first year of coexistence. What were the key differences in talent, attendance, and fan engagement between the two professional lacrosse leagues. How did rookies fare in each league.

The Birth of a New Era in Professional Lacrosse

The landscape of professional lacrosse underwent a seismic shift in 2019 with the launch of the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). This new entity emerged as a direct competitor to the established Major League Lacrosse (MLL), creating a fascinating dynamic within the sport. The introduction of the PLL sparked widespread discussion and debate among fans, players, and industry insiders alike.

When news of the PLL’s formation broke, the immediate question on everyone’s minds was: “What about the MLL?” As it turned out, both leagues chose to operate independently, with minimal interaction or acknowledgment of each other. This led to an intriguing situation where former MLL All-Stars transitioned to become PLL professionals, effectively starting fresh in a new ecosystem where their previous achievements and statistics held no relevance.

Fan Reactions and League Loyalty

One of the most surprising aspects of this new era was the fan reaction. While excitement surrounding the PLL was expected and welcomed, what caught many off guard was the divisive nature of fan loyalty. Instead of embracing both leagues, a significant portion of the lacrosse community felt compelled to choose sides, creating an “MLL vs PLL” mentality.

This division manifested in various ways, including continued negative sentiment towards the MLL. For instance, when the MLL attempted to generate buzz for a rebranding effort by temporarily removing photos from their Instagram account, rumors quickly spread that the league had folded entirely. This misinterpretation highlighted the challenges faced by the established league in maintaining its image and fan base in the face of new competition.

Why Did Fans Feel Compelled to Choose Sides?

• Excitement for a new, innovative league format
• Perceived differences in player treatment and league operations
• Marketing and media coverage disparities
• Social media influence from high-profile players and personalities

Comparing Talent Pools: MLL vs PLL

When it comes to player talent, the PLL quickly established itself as the gravitational center of men’s professional field lacrosse. While both leagues boasted impressive rosters, a closer examination reveals some key differences:

Top-Tier Talent

Comparing the best players from each league, the gap in skill level is relatively narrow. Both the MLL and PLL feature elite athletes capable of jaw-dropping performances on the field.

Roster Depth

The most significant disparity becomes apparent when examining the full extent of each team’s roster. In a side-by-side comparison, the weakest player on a PLL squad would likely outperform their MLL counterpart. This depth of talent gives PLL teams a competitive edge across all positions.

Player Backgrounds

Both leagues continue to attract players with impressive collegiate accolades, including All-American honors. However, the PLL’s ability to lure a higher concentration of top talent has been a defining factor in its rapid rise to prominence.

Team Dynamics and Player Loyalty

While the PLL may have an edge in overall talent, the MLL has sought to differentiate itself through team cohesion and player loyalty. Many athletes who chose to remain with the MLL cited the strong bonds formed with teammates over years of playing together, often dating back to their college days.

This emphasis on team chemistry and continuity has been a selling point for the MLL, appealing to players who value long-standing relationships and a sense of familiarity. However, it’s important to note that the PLL has also fostered strong team dynamics, as evidenced by the success of squads like Whipsnakes LC and the camaraderie displayed by Archers LC.

Rookie Experiences in the MLL and PLL

The treatment and opportunities afforded to rookies provide an interesting point of comparison between the two leagues. In 2019, nearly all PLL draftees were also selected in the MLL draft, creating a unique situation where young players had to choose between the established league and the exciting newcomer.

Draft Class Analysis

• PLL: Higher percentage of drafted players saw playing time
• MLL: Greater volume of rookies given opportunities due to more teams

This disparity in rookie utilization highlights the different approaches taken by each league. The PLL’s more selective roster spots meant that drafted players were more likely to see meaningful playing time. In contrast, the MLL’s larger number of teams created more overall opportunities for young talent to break into the professional ranks.

League Structures and Playing Formats

One of the most significant differences between the MLL and PLL lies in their fundamental league structures and playing formats. These distinctions have had far-reaching implications for players, fans, and the overall growth of the sport.

MLL: Traditional City-Based Teams

The MLL adheres to a more traditional sports league model, with teams based in specific cities and regions. This approach aims to foster local fan bases and create strong community ties.

• Fixed home venues for each team
• Regular home and away game schedule
• Potential for deeper local market penetration

PLL: Tour-Based Model

In contrast, the PLL introduced an innovative tour-based format, where all teams travel to different locations throughout the season. This approach offers several unique advantages:

• Exposure to a wider range of markets across the country
• Ability to showcase the sport in non-traditional lacrosse areas
• Creation of “lacrosse festival” atmospheres at each tour stop

The PLL’s model has been praised for its potential to grow the sport nationally, while the MLL’s structure maintains the allure of hometown teams and local rivalries.

Media Coverage and Broadcast Partnerships

A critical factor in the success and visibility of any professional sports league is its media presence. In this regard, the MLL and PLL have taken divergent paths, each with its own strengths and challenges.

MLL Broadcast Strategy

The MLL has relied on a combination of regional sports networks and streaming platforms to bring games to fans. While this approach has allowed for targeted local coverage, it has sometimes struggled to provide consistent national visibility.

PLL’s Media Revolution

From its inception, the PLL made waves with its broadcast partnership with NBC Sports. This agreement provided the new league with unprecedented exposure on both network and cable television, as well as streaming options.

• Regular games on NBC Sports Network
• Select games on NBC’s main network
• Comprehensive streaming coverage via NBC Sports Gold

The PLL’s media strategy has been widely credited with elevating the profile of professional lacrosse and attracting new fans to the sport.

Player Compensation and Benefits

One of the driving forces behind the creation of the PLL was a desire to improve the financial situation and overall treatment of professional lacrosse players. This focus on player welfare has become a key differentiator between the two leagues.

MLL Compensation Model

Historically, the MLL has operated with a more modest salary structure, reflecting the financial realities of a niche sport. Many players in the league have needed to maintain other jobs to supplement their income from lacrosse.

PLL’s Emphasis on Player Investment

The PLL has made player compensation and benefits a cornerstone of its mission. Some key features of the PLL’s approach include:

• Higher base salaries for players
• Health insurance coverage
• Stock options in the league for players
• Investment in player marketing and personal brand development

This focus on creating a more sustainable career path for professional lacrosse players has been a significant draw for top talent and has put pressure on the MLL to reevaluate its own compensation structures.

Fan Engagement and Game Day Experience

The success of any sports league ultimately hinges on its ability to attract and retain fans. Both the MLL and PLL have recognized this fact and have implemented various strategies to enhance the fan experience, both in-person and through digital platforms.

MLL’s Community-Focused Approach

With its city-based team structure, the MLL has focused on building strong local fan bases. This approach includes:

• Youth clinics and community outreach programs
• Partnerships with local businesses and organizations
• Tailored in-stadium experiences that reflect each team’s unique market

PLL’s Innovation in Fan Interaction

The PLL has leveraged technology and social media to create a more interactive and immersive fan experience:

• Robust social media presence with behind-the-scenes content
• Player-focused storytelling to build personal connections with fans
• Interactive elements at tour stops, including fan zones and player meet-and-greets
• Innovative broadcast features like mic’d up players and in-game interviews

Both leagues have recognized the importance of creating engaging, family-friendly atmospheres at their events to attract a diverse range of fans and grow the sport’s overall popularity.

The Future of Professional Lacrosse

As the MLL and PLL continue to coexist and compete, the future of professional lacrosse remains a topic of intense speculation and interest within the sports world. Several key questions loom large:

Can Two Professional Leagues Sustain Long-Term Growth?

The viability of supporting two separate professional leagues in a sport still working to expand its national profile is a subject of ongoing debate. Some industry experts argue that consolidation may be necessary for the long-term health of professional lacrosse, while others believe that competition between the leagues will drive innovation and growth.

Potential for Collaboration or Merger

As both leagues evolve, there is speculation about the potential for increased collaboration or even a eventual merger. Such a move could combine the strengths of both organizations, potentially creating a more robust and sustainable professional lacrosse landscape.

International Expansion

Both the MLL and PLL have expressed interest in growing the game globally. The future may see efforts to expand into international markets, whether through exhibition games, partnerships with foreign leagues, or even the establishment of teams outside North America.

Technological Advancements

The integration of new technologies, both in terms of player performance and fan engagement, will likely play a significant role in shaping the future of professional lacrosse. Virtual and augmented reality experiences, advanced analytics, and innovative training methods could all contribute to the sport’s evolution.

As the MLL and PLL continue to chart their respective courses, the passionate lacrosse community watches with great interest. The competition between these two leagues has already sparked significant growth and innovation within the sport. Regardless of how the professional lacrosse landscape ultimately takes shape, it’s clear that the increased attention and investment in the game will play a crucial role in its continued development and popularity.

MLL vs PLL: The Article You Don’t Want To Miss

Editor’s Note: This is Part 3 of a four-part series reviewing the past year of men’s professional field lacrosse. The introduction to the series was published on Monday. Yesterday was the MLL year in review preceded by the PLL. Today, we’ll jump right into a head-to-head comparison of the MLL vs PLL.

When the PLL was announced, the obvious first question that came to mind for many lacrosse fans was, “What about the MLL?” Well, what wound up happening is that the MLL did their thing and the PLL did their thing. There actually wound up being very little cross-talk between the two. It actually took seemingly months before anyone in the PLL would even say the three letters of “M-L-L” consecutively. Former Major League Lacrosse All-Stars became professional all-stars. Their former records with the MLL were meaningless, and their old stats were non-existent in the PLL ecosystem. Everything was starting fresh.

But while the leagues were each walking and talking in their own direction, what honestly surprised me was the fan reaction. Excitement about the PLL was inevitable, but also encouraging. Fans new and old being excited about pro lacrosse is a GOOD thing. None of that is what surprised me. What did surprise me was how many decided to choose one league over another. It very much became MLL vs PLL. The reason that this surprised me is that there really wasn’t a major reason to do so. But how this manifested itself was not just enthusiastic support for the new league, but continued negative views of the MLL. For example: when the league was preparing to announce its rebranding effort, it temporarily removed all photos from their Instagram account — it’s a one click setting to do this — and changed its profile to a solid color of black. It created buzz, which was the point, but the buzz was that the league had officially folded. That’s not exactly what it was going for.

I realize that there has been a lot of bad feelings toward the MLL, particularly from former players about how things were run. You can read more about that here. However, what was interesting is how it became particularly divisive among fans, considering that most of these people didn’t actually have any personal connection to these players and were sort of just going along with their narrative.

But let’s take a look at a few key areas to see how the leagues really were stacked up head-to-head.

Talent

In terms of talent, the idea that everybody with the Premier Lacrosse League uses is “the best players”. That is also something that drives MLL teams and MLL players crazy. There’s no doubt that the gravitational center of professional lacrosse talent for men’s field leagues is with the PLL. If you have six teams side-by-side with each league, I would argue that the top talent on each team is relatively close. But if you look at the bottom of those rosters, the worst player on a PLL team is probably going to be a much better player than the worst player on an MLL team. The MLL has great role players, great high-end talent and it has lots of actual professional players. The league still has very good teams and very talented lacrosse players. All-American accolades are still the standard. But if you look at just talent alone from top-to-bottom for an entire roster, the PLL definitely wins out from an MLL vs PLL perspective.

Where the MLL is trying to separate itself, and why many of the players who chose to play in the MLL — it is important to point out that players did deliberately choose to stay in the MLL this year — is that they enjoyed playing with their team with whom they had formed relationships with teammates throughout college and through these past years of the MLL. They wanted to keep those relationships moving forward and keep playing as a group. Now that’s not to say that the PLL doesn’t have teams that play as a team. It absolutely does.  I don’t think you see the sort of success that Whipsnakes LC would have without it. I think another team that had a great team vibe to it was Archers LC via a lot of history between players on that team, even though it didn’t have the same sort of success as the eventual champs.

Now, where things get really interesting between the leagues is when you look at its rookies. Some rookies were drafted in both leagues. In fact, all but two PLL draftees were also drafted by the MLL. The volume of MLL picks was also significantly larger because it was initially done while there were still nine teams. But where things get fun is when you start seeing how the rookies moved around. In the end, if you go by percentage of the draft class that played, the PLL was the better spot to be. If you look at numbers in terms of volume, the MLL was the better spot to be. Here’s a quick breakdown of the rookies for the MLL vs PLL:

MLL vs PLL Rookie Comparison

*Ryder Garnsey was included in this even though neither league drafted him directly due to his questionable eligibility for going pro due to having an extra year of NCAA eligibility.

The information gleaned from breaking that down a little bit also gets interesting. Only six of the MLL rookies who fell into the “did not play” category that were drafted by one of the three franchises that were either terminated or put on hiatus last year were not picked up by one of the remaining six MLL teams. 2 players didn’t sign with either league in addition to Pat Spencer.

Those are the rookies. What about everyone else? For a few of the younger players, the PLL did exactly what they wanted it to do for them. It took very talented players and put them in a position to thrive. Players like Jules Heningburg, Jarrod Neuman and Mark Glicini all saw their profiles rise significantly. In the MLL, players that were maybe the 3rd or 4th option at their position were given a chance to shine as well. James Fahey for the Cannons was out stripping players like Lyle Thompson and Rob Pannell. Players like Ryan Lee, Bryce Wasserman and Bryan Cole were turned into leaders.

Of course, with some players getting more of the spotlight, it meant that others are going to lose it. On the MLL side, this didn’t happen too much. The players who couldn’t find the field regularly were mostly new to the league as rookies or free agents. In the PLL, it was a different story. You saw players that were regular starters and all-stars all of a sudden have their time on the field evaporate. Players like Steven Brooks, James Pannell, Davey Emala, Ty Thompson, Brandon Mullins, John Lade, Steve Waldeck, Evan Connell, Kevin Rice and Joe Fletcher played no more than a handful of games. In some ways, this is good for the PLL at a high-level because it keeps those players out of the MLL, it makes spots more competitive and it helps build its prestige. On the other hand, good players do not like sitting at home. When those contracts are up, more players may go back to the MLL or just leave the game entirely. As more players are entering the PLL, this problem will only grow.

Social

Social media actually may be one of the biggest areas where the two leagues have a stark difference. It’s a very interesting area because every business, league or organization has the ability to either care about social media a lot, care about it a little bit or not care about it at all. You can have a very successful business while making a ton of money with a very dedicated fanbase without an ounce of social media. You also see some brands and organizations that only exist because they have amazing social media.

When it comes to sports, you typically see a few different approaches. You have the groups that like to use social media as a personality. There are great examples of this all over the place in sports where the social manager running that account speaks as if it is themselves. They talk to the account’s fans almost like a person, even though it’s the logo and name of the team or league. Then, you have organizations that do it differently. This is would be the MLL, where it uses social media to push information out so that you can understand what is happening with that team or league. You’ll see scores, links to press releases, breaking news, some key highlights of a game or a big play or two it feels is worth highlighting. This is typically what you’re going to see on an MLL feed.

Where the PLL went totally different, is rather than using social media to supplement its other messaging, its entire approach is social media first. As a person who lives in a market where the PLL has visited, once the announcement came out that it was coming to Gillette, I was seeing sponsored posts from the PLL for that event every time I logged into Facebook. I also got the same thing for the PLL Academy when it has events in this area. That is how it is doing its marketing, and that’s just the paid stuff on top of the regular content it’s pushing out on its accounts. It’s using its accounts to drive as much engagement, interactions and generate impressions (much of which I talked about in the previous article) so it can make a dedicated global fanbase. The one possible knock against this approach, which I’m not saying is right or wrong because in the end it’s ultimately proven how well it’s doing, is that social media creates free interactions which still need to be turned into actual dollars through sponsorship, merchandise, ticket sales and other forms of revenue.

Stats

To start the year, the two leagues actually started in a pretty similar spot was with regards to stats. If you’ve been following professional lacrosse for the past several years, you’ll know that stats are a very touchy topic. The problems that people have had was actually recording accurate stats and having them line up consistently. This was usually made worse when people like Joe Keegan started keeping their own stats to provide more in-depth analysis. You could find some discrepancies between what he would publish and what the official box score said, despite using the same definitions. Having live, up-to-date stats was always a thorn in the side of lacrosse fans. Now the NLL has recently announced that they’re really moving forward with a more robust stat keeping operation as they try to embrace gambling, so that is going to be raising the bar a bit.

But in terms of the outdoor game, the MLL wanted to make sure that it took a step ahead in terms of the stats it was keeping this year. Since the PLL knew the bad history that the MLL had, and wanting to avoid replicating that, it tried to see what it could do a little bit differently. When both leagues started, a major issue was that neither one of those leagues had a functioning stat site. When you’re trying to cover the leagues, having good, accurate box scores is critical to solid game coverage. With neither one of these leagues offering any sort of live stats in the first weeks, it was frustrating to say the least. This wound up turning into emailed PDF box scores after each game. Sometimes two if there were errors.

When the stats sites were finally launched, they went in very different directions. With the PLL being a player-focused league, it tended to highlight much more of the player-driven stats and who the stats leaders were more than holistic team box scores with scoring summaries like you see at the college level. You could definitely see that it had a different emphasis that it was trying to apply. What I really miss from its early-season box scores was information like time on the field and +/- values. The MLL, on the other hand, really stepped up their game in the stats department. I feel like not many people may have really noticed what an improvement it had made. It started getting into interesting things like defensive runouts and straightforward penalty team stats. In this category, the MLL really did well from an MLL vs PLL comparison.

(Note: If you’re looking for some great statistical analysis about the PLL, check out our PLL By The Numbers series created by NBA sports analytics guru Wayne Winston and his son Greg.)

Attendance

Attendance, oh attendance. This is another area where things are always going to be interesting and controversial. It very much is a glass half full and glass half empty type of scenario depending on how you wanna look at  this topic. I previously mentioned in my PLL article its great Baltimore and Albany games both hitting sellout crowds. But, the way that it reported its attendance throughout the season as “total attendance” is to intentionally hide poor attendance from specific games during the entire weekend. Even during the NCAA Championship weekend, the NCAA is able to provide separate attendance for Division II and Division III games at the same venue on the same day.

I feel it’s important to also emphasize that attendance figures are always, across any league and any venue, something that becomes a little bit of an art and a science. Some locations just look at total sales while others will focus on turnstiles. You could go out and give away 200 tickets to a local charity organization, and now those tickets will count as being sold even if nobody sits in those seats. NFL teams have used this tactic to navigate its TV blackout rules for years. Also, some will count every employee, every media member, every staff member, and every concessions worker who is in the building.  These numbers are not going to ever reflect who is exactly in the seats, but you do hope that a group at least calculates comparable numbers to other events that are held at similar venues so we can make accurate comparisons across events. If you are trying to compare MLL vs PLL attendance, there’s always going to be a margin for discrepancy.

Back to lacrosse.  The total attendance is frustrating because as it does hide the bad, it also hides the good. You can be there in person and come up with an estimate, but you’ll never have any sort of way to prove it. As much as I want to compliment some of the good crowds that you could see on TV, it’s tough to really put too much emphasis on this and compare it to similar events. I want to compare the PLL’s championship game in Philly to past lacrosse events at that stadium, but I can’t.

For the MLL, attendance was also a mixed bag.  The Boston Cannons announced sellout crowds for its opener and its closer, but it definitely had some light games in the middle.  When you look at someone like Atlanta, it even moved venues in the middle of the season because it was not getting the sort of attendance that it needed. Another one that tended to look low was Dallas, but that one was a little bit tougher to tell based on the stadium setup. The one that really drew some attention was that the Chesapeake Bayhawks announced nearly 16,000 people at one of their games, which is of course an amazing crowd. But the one or two pictures from that game that captured a wider angle didn’t reflect a crowd of that size. In order to be that size, nearly half the stadium has to be filled just based on pure capacity numbers and that definitely was not the case. The other MLL attendance high point during the season that everyone looks at is Denver’s July 4th game. Unfortunately on this July 4th, weather played a huge factor and it definitely impacted the normal attendance that the team will report with the postgame fireworks always happening right after the game. In years past the Outlaws have had over 30,000 fans for that game alone.

Jumping over to the PLL, as I said before, it had the great two games, but what I really want to see from the league going into this season is the ability to maintain a crowd over all three games during a weekend. I don’t think that it needs to try to have sellouts at every single place. But, I don’t think that it can just have one marquee game at every single tour stop. I personally think a better sign for the PLL is going to be a maintained attendance level across all three games. Because that shows wherever it goes, it is drawing in a crowd that wants to watch all of the lacrosse games. It’s one thing to hype one game where it’s about 2 hours of gameplay plus maybe some fan fest and tailgating, but when you can get that many thousands of people to dedicate an entire weekend to your league, then you know you’re in an even better spot. Now, similarly to the Chesapeake situation mentioned above, you also have things like the PLL All-Star game in Los Angeles and a few other locations where the total attendance reported did not seem to line up with what you may be able to estimate with who was actually in those seats.

Business: MLL vs PLL

Now, in terms of business models, I tried to cover as much of that in the past two articles — for both the MLL and the PLL — so I don’t want to dive too deep into what each league is doing. I’m going to take a look to see how different each is in some ways and how similar they are in others.

Both leagues operate as single-entity models because all player contracts are centralized within the league office — both the MLL and the PLL. Where things differ is the MLL has previously been trying to operate like a more traditional league where the team located in a specific market knows how to best tailor its message to those specific fans it wants to pull in. The local connections drive revenue. The PLL, on the other hand, has based its touring model to be more focused on making sure that the league has a brand that typically is more important than the team brand. So the teams exist, but they exist in support of the league.

What that means is you might have people in an MLL market like Boston that know who the Boston Cannons are, but don’t know who the MLL is, and they couldn’t name a single team that the Cannons play against. But with the PLL, nearly any fan of a PLL team is going to know all about the PLL and they’re going to get their news through the PLL. They’re going to get everything about players from the league from that source. With the PLL keeping everything as centralized as possible, in some ways that works great because it means it has control and it has consistency. It’s relying on a smaller team to do everything. That does offer some great efficiencies, but where the league loses out in doing that is it doesn’t have the same amount of experience in market knowledge with each of the sites it visits. There is not the same boots on the ground type of marketing support to help draw new fans into the game outside of social media. Comparing the MLL vs PLL in terms of business models is different because they are two different approaches. But, at the end of the day what matters from a business perspective is who is generating revenue.

MLL Execs Believe in the Brand, Draw Parallels with Other Pro Sports

The 2011 Major League Lacrosse season was monumental for multiple reasons, but arguably the most important reason was the attendance.

According to the league’s statistics website, Pointstreak, the average attendance in 2011 was 6,417 spectators per game. Not only was it a league record, but it was also the first time the league climbed over 6,000 fans per game. A total of 231,023 fans came through the gates that season, the most since 2008; in fact, only three totals were higher than the 2011 season, and those seasons featured 60 games, while the 2011 season featured only 36.

Average attendance has fallen every season since then. Through June 23 (a total of 38 games), the average attendance for the 2018 season is 2,689 people per game. Add to that an almost nonexistent television presence, and the league is struggling to garner the attention of sports fans.

New MLL commissioner Sandy Brown, however, is optimistic about the future of the league. Part of his vision for helping MLL grow is by bringing in executives from other professional sports leagues and learning from how they grew over time.

“It’s all about best practices,” said Brown, who worked for the NBA for several years. “That’s one of the reasons why we have people that understand how important it is to drive leagues. When you look at our personnel, it’s rising in terms of the number of people who come out of the NBA and Major League Baseball and MLS. That’s where you pick up your best practices. It’s an evolution. We’ll get there. We’ll get the right people we need to have. I’m very confident.”

“You’re going to look back five years from now and say this is that critical period where people started working together and growing the game.” — Atlanta Blaze president Jim Pfeifer

Even for professional sports leagues now flourishing in the United States, there were times their futures looked bleak as well.

In 1980, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the NBA’s MVP that year) led the Los Angeles Lakers against Julius Erving and Darryl Dawkins in the NBA Finals. Despite the star power, two games aired live at 11:30 P.M. on the East Coast and on tape delay on the West Coast; the deciding Game 6 was aired on a two-and-a-half-hour tape delay. According to a post on the blog “Classic TV,” nine of the 17 NBA Finals games CBS televised from 1979-1981 aired at 11:30 on the East Coast, six of which were tape delays.

Major League Soccer contracted two teams after the 2001 season, its sixth year of operation. The situation was so bad after 2001 that a Washington Post article from 2016 revealed league owners agreed to fold the league and were preparing documents before Lamar Hunt — who owned two teams — rallied the rest of the owners to change their minds.

Those leagues bounced back, however. The NBA is a multibillion-dollar operation that is applauded for its ability to generate yearlong interest outside of the actual games and whose social media outreach dwarfs all professional leagues in the United States, including the NFL. Major League Soccer grew from 10 teams in 2001 to 23 in 2018, with three expansion teams (at a fee of approximately $150 million, according to a 2017 article in the New York Times) coming by 2020.

According to Forbes, an NBA team was worth a record average of $1.65 billion as of February 2018, and as of October of 2017, the average MLS team was worth $223 million, up more than 20 percent from the previous year.

One of the reasons for the rapid growth of MLS is the league’s willingness to spend money to attract some of the better-known superstars from around the world. Brown said that’s one area where MLL already has a leg up on MLS.

“They’ve done very well in terms of building their brand. It’s taken a long time,” he said. “The benefit we have over someone like the MLS is the best players in the world play in this country. That isn’t necessarily the case in soccer. We can showcase the best of this game week in and week out. That’s an advantage. We owe it to ourselves to create groundswells across the country for what we’re doing.”

Executives around the league agreed the players in MLL were the biggest assets the league has, and they needed to do more to share their stories with the public. With that in mind, however, since the players are not as well-known, it’s up to teams to create other events around the games to draw in more fans.

Tom Dissette, the senior vice president of the New York Lizards who previously worked with the New York Mets and New York Islanders, said one of his close friends, who still works for the Mets, came up with an Oktoberfest Night complete with a German band, food packages, two beers and a souvenir beer stein. He said the event drew an extra thousand people to that night’s game. The Lizards have borrowed that practice, hosting an 80s theme night in 2017 as well as hosting trading card and bobblehead nights in 2018.

The Ohio Machine recently hosted a superhero theme night. The Florida Launch will have a “Salute Our Heroes” night in July, honoring military members, teachers and doctors. The Chesapeake Bayhawks are hosting a post-game concert and fireworks in their July 2 game, while the Denver Outlaws have an annual Fourth of July fireworks show that draws in around 30,000 people each year.

“The main thing is making sure the fans are coming not just because they love lacrosse, but because it’s a fun event,” Dissette said. “We have a strong lacrosse base, but it’s continuing to look outside the market and get the non-lacrosse-centric fans to get involved. Doing different promotions and tapping into different markets and revenue streams is a way to do that, and theme nights are a way to facilitate that.”

Dallas Rattlers president Bill Goren, who worked for the Detroit Pistons and Houston Astros, said the event was a bigger sell than the actual game.

“Wins and losses are important,” he said, “but I can’t sell that because we won’t know the result until after we sell the ticket.”

“I worked for a minor league baseball team,” he added. “I would stand and say goodbye to everyone, and I’d ask how we did. Eighty percent of people couldn’t tell me how we did, but they had a good time. They were there with families and friends.”

Dissette and Goren added that it is beneficial for MLL teams to collaborate with the other professional sports organizations in their communities. Dissette said the Islanders have hosted a “lacrosse night” in partnership with the Lizards and Goren said the Dallas Cowboys, with their far-reaching brand, have helped to promote the Rattlers through social media and various activities.

According to Dissette, the fans shouldn’t just be treated to a game and a show, either. He said the experience needs to be more personal.

“One thing I’ve tried to implement with the Lizards is it’s all about the fans,” he said. “What the Mets do well, you see a smiling face walking in the door and when you leave, you say, ‘Thank you for coming.’ People don’t have to come. They spend their hard-earned money. It’s important.”

who visited your community

04/22

8 minutes

3887

When you maintain a personal blog or store profile on social networks, you must control all account visits. Find out how many people joined the community after the launch of the announcement, whether there are unsubscribes when testing new ideas, who reads you and what their interests are. Knowing the VK traffic statistics, you will not only check who logged into your account, but also set up advertising, build a sales funnel and select great content. Let’s take a closer look at how to do this.

How to view the statistics of visits to the VK page

In the internal analytics of VKontakte there is a section “Attendance”. It is available to all publics.
How to study the statistics of who visited the VK page from a computer:

1. Go to the public and click on the appropriate section in the right column.

2. Data for the selected days or weeks will be displayed in the Overview. Specify any period up to 180 days.

In the first block you will count the number of unique visitors. The number shows how many times a day, on average, people come to the account. Next is the column “New subscribers”, which shows the growth of followers. And the last metric is views. This is how all visits to the page are called. If a person returned to the same content 3 times in a day, the system will count it three times.

3. Click on any of the blocks to see the details.

Let’s analyze in detail what is in the statistics of VK visits.

Unique Visitors and Views

Shows the ratio of how many visitors came and how often they check for updates. At the top of the screen you can see the growth of people over the past month. The graph shows two curves simultaneously: unique guests and direct views. Uncheck any value to see the dynamics of only one indicator.

What you can track on the blue scale:
• Whether the advertising campaign was successful. You will see if there are clicks after the blogger’s ad or clicks due to the target.
• Whether newcomers came to the blog thanks to reposts. For example, if you held a contest where the participants, according to the conditions, made a repost. Or if you collaborate with publics and repost each other’s publications. Unique guests track whether the audience of partners is interested in your content. And if not, you will have to find groups for better cooperation.

• Are you recommended by VKontakte. The social network actively promotes newly created groups. But at the same time, it is important that the page develops quickly, has high involvement and the right topic. Be sure to check if the theme of the public matches its content. To competently draw up a content plan for the future, analyze what collects the highest coverage.

• How often subscribers watch updates. If over time they visit you less often, then you need to work on the material and communication. Search for hot topics, write bright headlines in texts, add polls and interactive games, communicate with followers in the comments, create catchy clips.

The pink scale will show how much people are interested in the proposed product or service, whether they like photo collections and texts. If you constantly invest in the target, and this indicator does not grow, you made a mistake in the ad settings and brought the wrong target audience to your account. And then you need to work with the analytics below.

Gender/Age

Metrics are loaded in the form of a general chart or a convenient graph. If you want to examine the data for a specific day, see the marks on the scale. For example, this way you can easily estimate the age of participants in a large-scale vote. Let’s say you own a beauty salon and you want to find out what services clients are interested in. Followers will take part in the survey, and you will understand what age women are interested in this or that offer. And this will help you properly target targeted advertising.

You will also accurately determine who is more interested in a particular product – men or women.

It’s best to use a chart to analyze all blog subscriptions. Each age period has its own interests and priorities. And this information can be used to write sales texts. For example, young people aged 18-21 are rarely interested in mortgages, but for an audience of 27-30 years old, this is a more relevant topic.

Geography

This block shows well which cities and countries the audience lives in. First of all, this is an important indicator for local business. If you actively manage social networks and invite to your store, and all followers live in other cities, this will not bring sales. Even if you post good posts every day and make creative stories. That is why Geography is so important to track regularly.

To show the catalog of goods in the VK store to interested users, buy advertising space in publications from local bloggers, place ads in city public pages, accounts of large shopping centers or residential complexes and other establishments.

If you are in the commodity business and ready to organize delivery to any city or country, Geography will help you choose the best time to scale your brand. You will be able to decide in which direction to deliver products from Russia in the first place. For example, to Belarus or Kazakhstan.

Devices

Find out whether account guests use mobile devices or computers more often. This information is mainly used for target settings.

Pay attention to whether it is convenient to view content from a smartphone. For example, in the mobile version, the long status is not fully displayed or is often merged with the cover. Its full version will be written only in the description below. And on a computer, on the contrary, the status is visible in its entirety. If you have 70% of users using the application, they will not see a profitable promotion or your main advantage, written under the name of the public in the form of two sentences.

Referral sources

Find out how users found your page on the Internet. This column displays all types of transitions:
• Via search engines. Content published by VKontakte is accepted by Yandex and Google. Write in it different thematic phrases for which the public will be indexed by search engines.

• Through external sites. If you have other social networks or your own website, be sure to leave a link to VK there. Transitions on them will be displayed in the sources in a separate column.
• From the public section. To make friends join your group, do not hide communities in the settings.

• From newsfeeds or sections “Recommendations”, “Interesting” and “TOP Communities”.

• Based on search results within VKontakte.
• From other accounts that reposted your post.
• By target.

• Via Stories or Notifications.

You can also be contacted through a mention in correspondence or when using internal social network applications where your contacts are.

With the help of analytics, you will be able to evaluate what sources visitors use to find you and what methods of account promotion you lack.

Analytics in personal profiles

To access personal account metrics, you need to reach 100 subscribers. Then “Statistics” and the “Attendance” subsection will appear under the profile picture.

Compared to public, there are minor differences in functionality. There is no subsection with sources, but it shows how blog subscriptions have grown.

It will be difficult to find statistics on who visited the VK page from friends. The thing is that the leadership of the social network appreciates anonymity and does not disclose such information. There are many apps on the web that promise to show you who is visiting a page. But they analyze who liked and commented on the wall, and based on them they issue a report. This is non-public information, and you can review it at any time.

To do this, select the wall post and click on the text or the empty space above the photo series.

Scroll to the bottom of the post and click on the number of likes above the Like.

You will see who rated the post and how many of them are your friends.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to find out the profiles of those who viewed the posts. But such data is collected by stories. Watch them in the moment for 24 hours or download them via Manage Stories.

Competitor analysis

Anyone can see who liked or commented on a post in someone else’s public. Go to the accounts of the most active subscribers in the competing community and, on this basis, draw up a portrait of the target audience. Also analyze what groups potential buyers are interested in. They can advertise their products.

Another way to analyze competitors is to evaluate their most popular content. Find the posts with the most reactions. Log in to your SmmBox account and click on the “Analytics” section. Add a link to the public and go to “Most Popular Posts”.

Sort by comments and pay attention to which topics cause the most heated discussion. Consider this on the example of a public about cinema.

The most engagement is under a photo with a popular actress. The public hit their target audience perfectly by posting a photo selection. In second place are the results of the contest, where the followers chose the best Batman. In the world of cinema, users are always interested in the confrontation between different film studios, the actors of the original and the remake, as well as restarts. And also the increased interest was affected by the voting, where the followers themselves chose the best actor.

A nostalgic post that showed the star of the film Home Alone as an adult was also popular. When famous actors change a lot in appearance, it always causes a strong reaction.

Let’s analyze the eyelash extension studio according to the same principle.

More than a thousand people watched a short video review from a client. This suggests that studio administrators need to use the video and clip format quite often. And for reviews, you can create a separate album or discussion.

There was also a good response to the promotional offer, where the girls were offered a discount for building up any volume. Having correctly built a pricing policy, you can attract new clients to the procedure and acquire regular visitors.

Conclusion

VK traffic statistics show who visited your profile. By analyzing it, you will improve the content and attract buyers. The main thing is to respond to all changes in time and adapt to new conditions, keeping the audience on the blog.

How to increase website traffic and monetize the resulting traffic

• How to

29.09.2022, 19:10

There are many different techniques that a site owner can use to drive more traffic to their site. Resources with good traffic are popular with advertisers – you can place display ads on them and provide yourself with additional income.

Sergey Samonin, CEO of the RTBSape programmatic platform, and Artur Latypov, head of the SEO Intellect agency and F1 studio, talked about how a webmaster can increase website traffic and subsequently make money on it.

Increased website traffic

In order to further monetize the site with maximum efficiency, you need to make efforts to increase its traffic. The higher the traffic, the more opportunities open to sell it to advertisers.

A well-established way to increase traffic is search engine optimization – SEO. In fact, this is a set of works to bring your site to the top of search engine results – Google and Yandex. To achieve this task, various methods are used: working with text content, images, page linking, link promotion, and others.

However, in the end, they all serve the same purpose – to satisfy user requests. At the same time, all requests differ in terms of coverage and frequency. So, the phrase “laptop” could be entered in a search engine by a user who wants to buy such a product, or someone who needs help information about a device or an upgrade of a laptop computer. It is extremely difficult to establish a clear intent here. For such situations, you should properly prepare the site – fill it with commercial content, but do not forget about informational content as well. If the search engine sees that the resource pages contain data for any intent, it will rank it higher.

“Buy a laptop Dell Inspiron St. Petersburg” already very clearly defines the intention of the author of the request. Obviously, this is a commercial request, but in order to bypass competitors in the search results, it will not be enough for you to simply place products of this brand on the site. The best solution would be to provide as much commercial information as possible – how and where the product can be purchased, how to get it, what additional services are included. Often this requires that the site being promoted has an appropriate structure, for example, that each query cluster has a separate page.

Sample scheme for structuring a site for various requests

A similar approach should be used when preparing content for any requests, regardless of their content and subject matter. The more potentially useful information, the better. Of course, large companies – such as marketplaces or aggregators – have more options for hosting it than small sites, so it is difficult to compete with them, except perhaps for some very unpopular specific requests.

In any case, search engine promotion will be a good investment in website development. And although you will feel the first effect only after a few months, it will accumulate and the position in the SERP will improve even after a considerable time. Thus, optimization is a kind of long-term investment in a resource that is relevant not only at the moment when it is carried out, but also after.

In addition, SEO attracts exactly “hot” traffic – an audience that is already clearly aimed at receiving your products and services. At the same time, the average cost of attraction, in comparison with other marketing tools, is one of the lowest.

Alternative methods to increase traffic

If we talk about the cost, then it is also quite profitable to attract with the help of targeting and social networks. However, in this case, the audience will need to be additionally “warmed up” and segmented, which implies additional expenses and manipulations. That is, in terms of the conversion rate, these methods lose to SEO.

If you want to achieve a faster effect compared to search engine optimization and a greater influx of people to the site, you can resort to contextual advertising services. But this method is much more expensive, and given the risk of “clicks” – when competitors literally force you to spend extra money – it can completely negate all the advantages of speed. However, in conjunction with SEO, the method works well and is more economical.

If you have an authority in your niche in the market, you can try to attract an audience at his expense by publishing various expert materials in the media. It makes sense to start blogs on other thematic sites and regularly fill them with content. The problem is that creating such channels from scratch is very difficult and it definitely cannot be done quickly.

Therefore, if you have the appropriate level of expertise and resources, it is best to invest them in search engine optimization. Yes, its effect cannot be called instant, however, it will be of high quality and will allow in the future to provide the site with a constant influx of additional traffic. At the same time, this technique can be called universal without exaggeration – that is, it is suitable for absolutely any webmaster.

Traffic monetization

After the number of users of your site starts to increase, it makes sense to think about monetizing this traffic. One of the most popular ways is to place display ads on the pages of the site by connecting to special advertising networks.

Advertising networks and payment models. Display advertising includes images and videos that convey a specific message to the user and encourage them to use certain goods and services.

From the point of view of the site owner, it is first of all important to decide which model he is going to work on:

• CPM – payment is made for ad impressions to site users. At the same time, for the convenience of calculations, the price is indicated for 1000 impressions.

• CPC – the owner receives money for clicks on ads.

• CPA – paid for some targeted actions performed by the user after clicking on the ad. This can be an order for goods, registration on the site or a call.

Networks work with different payment models. Each has its own specifics and advantages. For example, impressions pay the least, but according to the CPA model, they pay much more for each targeted action. But showing ads is much easier than motivating users to click on banners and, moreover, to perform any additional actions on the advertiser’s website. Working on the CPA model, in principle, you may not earn money if site visitors are not interested in the goods and services offered in the ads.

If you work with CPM or CPC networks, payment is sometimes made not immediately, but at the end of the month. For example, in September you receive the funds earned for impressions and clicks in August. In addition, if you earn on clicks, there is a chance of losing some of your income due to suspicions of cheating. This can happen even if you are not using any manipulation schemes, but the network has suspicions.

In order to start making money on display advertising, a webmaster needs only:

• Select an advertising network and register with it.

• Receive an advertising code from this network.

• Place the code on the site pages in the places where you plan to display ads.

• Start earning money and then withdraw it from the account as needed.

How to earn more from advertising. In order for media ad revenue to grow, you need to experiment with different ad networks and formats. So, you usually need to monitor the work of network algorithms for at least a week to understand whether it suits you or not. Don’t jump to conclusions – it’s quite possible that after the network is properly configured, you will like the results of collaboration more.

Before starting cooperation, it is recommended to learn as much as possible about future partners in order to draw conclusions for yourself. Read the reviews of other users and find out in advance about possible difficulties, as well as who is more pleasant and easier to work with.

However, experiments are not limited to the choice of a network – no less important is what ad formats you choose and where you plan to place them. If banners are located in those parts of the site that users do not scroll to, then the site owner is unlikely to receive many impressions. Having determined the most viewed places on each page, you can try to place ads there, but you can choose the optimal scheme only by trial and error.

This set of advertising formats is considered one of the most versatile

If you are willing to take the time to find the ratio that will bring in the most buyouts at the best rates without scaring away your audience, you will be able to maximize your ad revenue. In this case, you will also receive a convenient tool for monetizing traffic, which can at least cover part of your costs for maintaining the resource.

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