HARRISON, NEW JERSEY – SEPTEMBER 14: Graham Bundy Jr. #0 of the Denver Outlaws handles the ball as Michael Grace #20 of the New York Atlas defends during the Premier Lacrosse League Championship game between the New York Atlas and the Denver Outlaws at Sports Illustrated Stadium on September 14, 2025 in Harrison, New Jersey. (Photo by Evan Bernstein/Getty Images)
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The Premier Lacrosse League, which was founded in 2018 by brothers Mike and Paul Rabil, has raised $100 million in Series E financing. Ares Management and Alibaba Group co-founder Joe Tsai led the round. ESPN also made a subsequent investment following last year’s initial minority equity stake in the professional league, which coincided with an extension of its media rights agreement through 2030.
It is not the first time ESPN has been financially involved in leagues that the network covers and televises. For instance, ESPN previously owned a minority interest in the Arena Football League, an indoor league that folded in 2019. The NFL earlier this year also completed its 10% ownership stake in ESPN.
Mike Rabil, a former Dartmouth football player and veteran entrepreneur, would not disclose the league’s valuation following the latest round, but he said its value has increased since the PLL’s Series D round in 2022. Mike Rabil serves as PLL’s CEO, while Paul Rabil is its president. Paul Rabil was an All-American lacrosse player at Johns Hopkins University and a former star in the PLL and Major League Lacrosse, which the PLL merged with in 2020.
The PLL is a wholly-owned entity, meaning the league owns the eight franchises. While the teams represent cities or states, they compete in the same venues across the U.S. on weekends from early May through late September. So far this year, the league has traveled to Utah, Rhode Island, Maryland, North Carolina, Long Island and California.
Mike Rabil said the PLL is considering selling existing or new franchises as a way to provide an exit opportunity for current investors and grow the league on a local level.
“We’re evaluating it as we speak,” he said. “It’s a hot topic for us.”
He added: “Over time, we want to get more local. We’re a national business, as being a touring model. Pro sports are community businesses. There’s big upside, we think, in getting and bringing these teams more deeply into the communities.”
Asked about a potential sale of the entire league, Mike Rabil said that “if someone wanted to come in and made a compelling long-term offer to buy the whole thing, sure, we’d listen. But I think for us, we try to be students of everything. We study sports business. We don’t think we have all the answers at all, and so we look at some of the success leagues have had with great local team owners who operate these things day in and day out with vigor…Bringing on potentially other operators that care that much could really help us scale in a faster way, so it’s something we’re spending time on.”
While the PLL is far behind established entities such as the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball in terms of longevity, popularity and revenue, the league has attracted a variety of well-known investors. For instance, Tsai, the owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty, is the largest shareholder in the PLL and has invested in the league since its Series A round in 2019. Tsai, who played lacrosse at Yale University in the 1980s, has a net worth of $11.6 billion, according to Forbes.
Meanwhile, Ares, an investment manager with $644 billion in assets under management, invested in the PLL for the first time in the Series E round, coinciding with its increased focus on sports in recent years. Ares acquired a 10% equity stake in the Miami Dolphins in late 2024. It has also made two preferred equity investments for a total of $225 million in Inter Miami CF, a Major League Soccer franchise; invested in League One Volleyball, an indoor women’s professional league; and bought a minority stake last year in the France team in SailGP, a sailing league founded in 2019 by Oracle founder Larry Ellison and Sir Russell Couts.
Jim Miller, the co-head of Ares Sports, Media and Entertainment, has joined the PLL’s board of directors as part of the company’s investment, which Mike Rabil described as “very large.” The board also includes Tsai, Arctos co-founder David O’Connor, Raine Group partner Colin Neville, Chernin Group co-founder Mike Kerns and Creative Arts Agency Sports co-head Mike Levine.
Other investors in the latest round include actors Glen Powell, Rob McElhenney and Tony Cavalero and country singer Warren Zeiders, as well as Bolt Ventures, the family office of David Blitzer. Blitzer is the managing partner of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and other sports assets. Blitzer has a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes.
The PLL plans on using proceeds from the Series E round to expand its season and possibly begin earlier in the spring, spend more on its media and commercial arm via scripted and unscripted content on YouTube and other platforms and invest additional resources in its youth initiatives and the Women’s Lacrosse League.
The WLL debuted with a series of games in February 2025 outside of Washington, D.C. This year, the league’s four teams each play four games over eight weekends in the regular season that coincides with the PLL’s schedule. The WLL championship game is on Aug. 15 in Subaru Park in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pa., the same weekend the PLL is holding games in that venue. The PLL and WLL All-Star games are on Sunday in Annapolis, Md.
The PLL also sponsors youth camps, clinics and tournaments and partners with local communities and recreation departments to help them operate youth leagues similar to the NFL with its NFL Flag initiative. The Rabil brothers see that push as crucial to growing the sport’s popularity, making it more accessible to young people and having them become longtime fans of lacrosse and the PLL.
“I believe in building something that outlasts me, and Paul does, as well,” Mike Rabil said. “How do you build a forever brand? If you look at the top four sports leagues, most of them have been around for 100 years-plus. The PLL may be very successful when Paul and I are no longer on this Earth, so we need to think long-term. At the same time we’ve raised capital and we have fiduciary responsibilities on behalf of our shareholders. But our shareholders are really patient, and we have great investors, and they want to do what’s right for the sport.”