Luey named permanent MSL commissioner
Major Series Lacrosse has removed the interim commissioner’s tag from Doug Luey.
The long-time Clarington Green Gaels executive and highperformance director of the Canadian Lacrosse Association will assume the full-time commissioner’s role for the 2018 season. Luey stepped in to fill a void when the MSL removed long-time commissioner Jim Brady from the post last year.
The MSL governors struck a committee last year to find a new commissioner. At the end of their search they had not found a suitable candidate, said Luey.
“There were five names that were mentioned,” Luey said. “Two of them made themselves unavailable even though the search committee thought they’d be good candidates. Three they didn’t think were suitable candidates.”
It is not his intention to stay in the role permanently but Luey said he will buy the MSL another year to continue its search.
Having said that, Luey is excited by some new initiatives the league is working on for 2018. Last year, he said he was pressed into service primarily because the league needed someone to arbitrate disagreements and take care of player transactions. This year, there will be an additional focus on trying to improve the league’s profile and marketing.
“I’m actually really excited about Major Series Lacrosse because we have a lot of really good things on the go,” he said. “I think I recognized some of the shortcomings of the league and I was pretty vocal with the governors in saying, ‘In business, if you do the same thing the same way for 20 years and expect different results we call that lunacy.’ I got a chuckle but I meant every word of it. I think the governors recognized they had to change.”
The league has hired a media director whose job will be to revamp the league website and keep it updated daily, improve information flow to media and push social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
“Historically, lacrosse doesn’t do a very good job of marketing our game and our players,” Luey said. “We have the best players in the world playing in our league. Minor lacrosse and people in general don’t know about that because we don’t do anything to promote that. We have some things in place to promote that league-wide.”
The league wants to overhaul its webcasts to create a greater presence online without negatively affecting its deals with local cable channels.
“We’re in negotiations right now. Ideally we’d like to webcast a minimum of 24 of 54 regular season games plus playoffs,” he said. “Webcasting is not usually detrimental to putting people in the seats. It’s more for people who can’t get to the games. Quite frankly, there is a revenue stream available there.”
Luey said there is also a recognition some franchises are healthier financially than others and things need to be done to help those markets that are struggling to better market their product. A greater focus needs to be put on retention of players rather than losing them to senior B.
“The best players should be playing senior A lacrosse,” he said.
At the top of the league, he says the competition has never been better.
“There is a lot of upside to the league. I think there is a lot of parity now,” he said.
“I thought both (semifinals) could have gone either way. One went seven games and the other six. You can’t ask for much better than that. I’m a lacrosse aficionado and I thought the final was some of the best lacrosse I’ve seen in a long time.”