Why You Should Be Excited About the Women's Lacrosse League
11/13/2024 12:01 PM
Why You Should Be Excited About the Women's Lacrosse League
The Premier Lacrosse League’s announcement of the Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL) is the kind of development that feels like it’s been in the works for a number of years especially for fans that have been paying attention. The PLL has been building up towards this move for over the past year starting with Unleashed promotional campaigns along with highlighting women’s lacrosse stars and prime appearances at events like the PLL All-Star Game. Now, with the WLL set to launch at the 2025 Championship Series, women’s professional lacrosse finally has an official platform under the PLL umbrella bring the professional side of men’s and women’s lacrosse together.
While this move has certainly been in the works for quite sometime, I wonder about the timeline moving forward. The PLL just shifted to a city-based model this past season and here we are one year later, with a new women’s league on the way. The PLL’s choice to launch the WLL with four teams with plans to announce those teams’ locations down the line leaves the door wide open for speculation. I would imagine that the WLL plans to leverage the PLL’s growing fanbase in certain regions and tie these new WLL teams to already existing markets. It’s a strategic play that could bring PLL fans into the women’s game quickly, uniting fans around lacrosse as a sport. For a league that’s always been strategic about growth, it’s a move that just makes sense.
We’re already gearing up for 2025 and the Championship Series is just around the corner. Knowing how the PLL tends to operate around big announcements it is safe to say we can expect roster and team announcements to come out soon. There’s this exciting sense of planned urgency, as though the PLL isn’t wasting any time turning the WLL into a reality. They have been promoting women’s lacrosse on the side for a number of years now and it seems like they have been cooking the WLL for this exact moment.
One of the most impactful elements of the WLL is the choice to go with the Sixes format instead of a traditional women’s field lacrosse format. With lacrosse returning to the Olympics in 2028, the Sixes format aligns perfectly with the global next step the sport is about to take come 2028. Sixes is fast, it’s intense, and it feels like a natural bridge between the men’s and women’s games. If you’re already a PLL fan, you probably know Sixes from a men’s perspective, which means you’re already primed for this women’s league launch. For a sport that’s often struggled with the gap in understanding between the men’s and women’s game, Sixes is a way to bring everyone together on the same pageᅳespecially new fans who want to enjoy both without getting bogged down in different rulesets. Lacrosse purists might miss the nuances of the traditional women’s game, but Sixes promises a level of accessibility that could be exactly what the WLL needs for an explosive start.
In the end, though, what’s most exciting about the Women’s Lacrosse League is the opportunity it creates for young women. The PLL has undeniably impacted the men’s game; every lacrosse event you go to now, you see young players rocking PLL gear, talking about their favorite PLL players, and dreaming of being in their shoes. The WLL now offers young women a clear path to the same dream, to something beyond college lacrosse. Now, players like Charlotte North and Izzy Scane aren’t just athletes following college; they’re professional icons in the making. With the WLL, there’s this chance to build something that resonates with fans on a whole new level, bridging the men’s and women’s game under the same banner and growing the sport in a way that feels cohesive and complete. The PLL didn’t just launch a league; they took a giant step for the future of lacrosse.
