Day 22 of MSBA 2013: Inside Access to the National Lacrosse League

Post by Adam Daroff for June 23, 2013

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Although it feels like we just arrived, MSBA is now heading into its fourth week. The time has flown by but I have done as much networking in these three weeks as I’ve probably done in the last year. We have a very busy schedule in the program and that is allowing us to maximize our eight week stay in NYC. I am interning with the National Lacrosse League, the premier North American men’s professional indoor lacrosse league.

The league headquarters are at 36th Street and 6th Avenue. The league currently has nine teams in the United States and Canada and unlike most lacrosse leagues, the NLL plays in the winter and spring. Because there are only four employees and three interns in the office, I have been able to wear a few different “hats” thus far.

I am primarily working for Brian Lemon, VP of Lacrosse Operations, but he works in Florida so most of my work with him is surrounding NLL conference calls with owners, general managers, and head coaches. Since it is the NLL’s off-season, I am spending a lot of time working on preparations for the league’s fall entry draft. The NLL’s draft is similar to those in other leagues and I am currently preparing a list of all the graduating college seniors that played NCAA lacrosse for distribution to the teams. This will serve as part of their list of draft-eligible players.

Additionally, I have and am working on some competitive analyses for Justin Rubino, Director of Business and Administrative Operations. Two examples have been comparing the NLL’s attendance versus that of NCAA lacrosse at the Division I level and Major League Lacrosse, which is an outdoor summer professional league. Lastly, I worked on an assignment which required me to put together a list of all the players that participate in both the NLL and MLL. Because the league schedules do not overlap (except for maybe two weeks), many players participate in the NLL and then the MLL in the summer. My experience at the NLL has been fantastic so far and I look forward to spending the rest of my summer there.

When not interning or participating in the awesome MSBA speakers and events, I’ve been able to network and either meet up or talk with some fantastic people in sports. I’ve had the chance to speak with some of our MSBA speakers a few days after they spoke and have arranged to meet up with a few others in the coming weeks. With networking being such a vital part of the industry, I have really taken Ben’s motivation to do so to heart. Additionally, I was able to meet my MSBA mentor, Matt Lacks, for the first time last week, as we met for lunch and discussed my interests, his career, and some of the advice he had for me.

I look forward to meeting and talking with him more the coming weeks and hopefully months and years as he is a wealth of knowledge and seemed extremely interested in helping me as I hopefully soon enter the industry. With five more weeks to go, I cannot wait to see what else Ben, David and the rest of the MSBA staff have in store for us. I’m most looking forward to the diverse speakers and our usual Friday field trips as they both give us an experience that no one outside of MSBA may ever have the chance to be a part of.