White House Task Force member Sakiewicz confident sports on their way
There is the reality-TV-star owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the ever-rambunctious spirit behind professional wrestling. There are the owners of the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots. There are voices representing golf and college sports, hockey and soccer, women’s pro basketball and major-league baseball.
And there, too, on the White House Sports Task Force to restore American athletics after a lengthy pause is Nick Sakiewicz. He’s the former Glen Mills resident who has always looked at something difficult in sports and then made it work.
Sakiewicz is the commissioner of the National Lacrosse League, the indoor loop featuring the Philadelphia Wings that has been in a timeout since March 12. But he is as well known for once having looked at an empty space on the Chester waterfront and imagined it as a home for a soccer club that could be worthy someday of hosting Glasgow Celtic in a friendly.
If that could happen, and it did, little else in sports would be impossible. And it is with that history of optimism that Sakiewicz video-conferences regularly with the committee, kicking around ideas with Mark Cuban and Vince McMahon, Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft and the commissioners of every major professional league.
His take-away?
It will happen.
“We share a lot of information and data,” Sakiewicz said. “That group is made up of almost every sports property there is. And we are sharing our best practices for reopening our arenas and re-launching the league, to keep the players, the fans and everybody in the arena safe and healthy.
“Our season typically starts in December. We are looking at pushing it off a month, just so there is a vaccine in the market. And we’re hearing that there’s going to be a vaccine by the end of the year in distributions that will get fans feeling more comfortable.
“So we feel we will be playing lacrosse next year in front of fans.”
To a commissioner like Sakiewicz,
that final clause – “in front of fans” – is vital. Unlike the NFL, NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball, the Conshohocken-headquartered NLL is not flush with media riches. Rather, it depends largely on the growing population of lacrosse fans purchasing tickets, souvenirs and snacks. Just the same, Sakiewicz assures, the league is trying to find ways to award the National Lacrosse League Cup, even if it means taking the financial jolt of playing in virtually empty arenas. Though the league announced in April that it was canceling the remainder of the regular season, the NLL still may concoct a postseason tournament. The Wings, at 8-and-6, would be qualified.
“It would cost us a lot of money,” Sakiewicz said. “That’s for sure. That’s one of the considerations. We just haven’t decided on a postseason yet.”
If the NLL decides that it is cost-prohibitive to run a tournament, it would regroup for next season. If so, the flip-side to a sport more dependent on spectators than on TV revenues is that its ticket-buyers are unlikely to stray. If they want indoor lacrosse, they know where to find it and are willing to invest disposable income to maintain it as an entertainment option. It’s why Sakiewicz does not fear an out-of-sight, out-ofmind crisis.
“Not at all,” he said. “We started to double down on our engagement with fans. We’ve had more engagement over the last nine weeks than we’ve ever had in any offseason in the history of the league. Across the entire league, season tickets are 85-percent renewed for next year. If that tells you what the fans are thinking about, they are thinking about coming back and watching the NLL next year.”
With MLS, the NBA and NHL close to stirring, baseball set this week to reveal its reopening plan, and full pro and college football seasons likely, that will give ample time for the NLL to welcome back its fans in what will be perceived as a healthy atmosphere.
“I have a family full of doctors,” said Sakiewicz, the son of a Polish immigrant. “It was the old European way: You went to school and became a doctor. Cousins. Uncles. I am privy to a lot of medical information that is unfiltered and unvarnished from what the news networks put out. So I feel pretty good. We have a lot of information about what this thing is and how we’re going to get through the next round. Unless there is another pandemic working, or a big spike in this one, I think we are coming back to normal, or a new normal I would say, for the next NLL season.”
Sakiewicz became a goalkeeper, not a doctor, playing professional soccer in Europe and North America, eventually rising to the executive level and helping to bring the MLS Union to Chester. With him as the face of the franchise, the Union was honored as Delaware County’s Sports Figure of the Year in 2011. Since 2016, Sakiewicz has been guiding the NLL, which has been reported to trail only the NBA and NHL in average attendance among professional indoor sports leagues.
“With lacrosse, I feel like it is soccer in the ‘90s,” said Sakiewicz, who raised his family in Delaware County while with the Union. “And it’s great to see. I’ve fallen in love with the sport. It’s such a dynamic, authentic sport. It reminds me a little bit of the good old days when athletes were athletes.
“The lacrosse culture is a lot of fun to be part of. I’m still a soccer fan. But, boy, have I become a fan of lacrosse, both the outdoor game and the indoor game. It’s a great, great sport.”
And a can-do voice on a White House committee will not rest until the professional, indoor version of it is back.