There is one key character in the Premier Lacrosse League origin story who you likely haven’t yet heard much about, but who played as important a role as anyone in making the new league a reality.
He’s a lacrosse lifer, a longtime advocate of the game and fixture with the U.S. men’s national team program — who just happens to have worked for three decades at NBC, the company that will air all 39 of the PLL’s games in its inaugural reason.
He’s Billy Rebman, the two-time Team USA general manager and a native Long Islander who played college lacrosse at then-C.W. Post. “He’s been an internal advocate [of the game] for a long time,” says Paul Rabil, the PLL co-founder, “and he deserves a lot of credit.”
Rabil played in two world championships — in 2010 in Manchester, England, and 2014 in Denver — during which Rebman was Team USA’s GM. Rebman also served on the staff of the 2002 and 2006 U.S. teams.
That was Rebman’s extracurricular job. During the day, he works in television as NBC’s vice president of sports research, projecting Nielsen ratings (an important metric for advertisers) for broadcasts.
When it came time for the PLL to discuss a much sought-after media rights deal in early 2018, Rabil knew just where to go, and he found a welcome audience that was familiar with the nuances of professional lacrosse.
“We always knew what professional lacrosse was,” Rebman says. “It was there, but the thing about Paul’s vision was to take it a step beyond what it is. He wanted to build something bigger and better than what currently existed for a lot of different reasons.”
Over the years Rebman had been in the ear of NBC’s president of sports programming Jon Miller, updating him on the lacrosse world, and international competitions like the men’s world championship and under-19 games.
NBC was also not totally unfamiliar with broadcasting lacrosse recently, in the form of college lacrosse’s Moe’s Southwest Grill Classic at the home of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars from 2012 to 2014.
And with live sports content more valuable than ever in the era of online streaming, NBC also had more outlets for lacrosse games than it did in the past, and the PLL’s projected start — June compared the MLL’s April — worked better for scheduling purposes.
“I’ve been fortunate to be here for 30 years, along with Jon. Lacrosse, 15 years ago, was not a sport that you could really get to top executives here and push to get on the air,” Rebman says. “We were just a broadcast network. Now we have a cable network and the sport has exploded over the last 10 years. And there is a track record of MLL and how it performed when it was on ESPN.
“When something like this came along, you’re getting the best of the best. It’s the elite players of this sport. World class, no one better. Something like that to feature and put on in the summertime, it’s a perfect fit.”
Miller and NBC’s vice president of sports programming Mike Perman met with the Rabils in New York and at NBC offices in Connecticut. Mark Iacovelli, NBC’s schedule master, got to work and found promising time slots that fit the network’s needs, and even a few primetime possibilities. At the same time, they did their due diligence.
“I’m very passionate about the sport,” Rebman says, “but you have to remember where you’re working and what you’re doing, and you have to be honest, and put it together just like you would do any other property.”
Rebman says the network and the PLL agreed to a three-year deal. Starting with the opener on June 1 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, fans will be able to watch three games on NBC and 16 games on NBC Sports Network, all of which will be live streamed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app. NBC Sports Gold – NBC Sports’ direct-to-consumer live streaming product powered – will live stream 20 more games. (Click here for the full schedule.)
The PLL championship will be broadcast on NBC live at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 21. NBC will also show a Week 2 game between Rabil’s Atlas team and the Chaos Lacrosse Club on Sunday, June 9, and another between the Atlas and Chrome Lacrosse Club on Sunday, June 16.
Brendan Burke, the television voice of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders, will handle play-by-play of games with former Princeton All-American, Team USA member and Major League Lacrosse All-Star Ryan Boyle as analyst. TV veteran Paul Burmeister, who hosted the inaugural PLL draft — broadcast in April late at night after Game 7 of a Stanley Cup playoff game — will serve as a host during the season, with Chantel McCabe, who some may remember from her time working with Major League Lacrosse and who now works at NBC Golf, serving as a sideline reporter.
Dan Steir is the coordinating producer who Rebman says has been working over the last year, “to try have a whole different look than anyone is used to seeing during a lacrosse game.” He was in charge of all production at ESPNU until 2012, so figures to be familiar with lacrosse.
“The unbelievable thing is here how the entire NBC Sports Group has embraced this partnership right now,” Rebman says. “We have so many amazing and talented people working in different area to help promote and get this off the ground.”
So, the big question: In his expert opinion, what kind of ratings is the PLL doing to do?
Rebman laughs, then says probably similar to what the NCAA tournament draws on television, and what Major League Lacrosse games used to get when they were broadcast on ESPN. But the exposure on the main NBC network could shoot those numbers higher.
It’s all still somewhat surreal for Rebman, who played lacrosse in high school at Baldwin (N.Y.) on Long Island. His son, Kyle, played college lacrosse at Jacksonville and with or against a lot of the players on the PLL rosters.
“For me, it’s a dream come true to see something like this get on the network level, especially the scale that it’s going be shown at this year,” he says. “And at the network I work at, I’m tickled to death with regard to that, and to help anyway I can. I’m very excited and proud of that.”