The can could only be kicked down the road so much longer, as it has now been made official that both the Ottawa Black Bears and Philadelphia Wings have discontinued operations, and their players will be divided amongst the other 12 teams via a dispersal draft process.

Why it failed in Ottawa

Somehow, someway, Nassau Coliseum has outlived the Ottawa Black Bears.

GF Sports, based out of New York City and an investment arm of private equity firm GF Capital Management, was granted an expansion franchise in December of 2018. One of GF Capital’s partners, Gary Furhman spoke at the time of the announcement about how they were looking to diversify their sports portfolio at the time that the NLL was looking to return to NYC, and the Long Island location would fill a gap in that specific part of the region.

Their first season was cut short from COVID before playing three seasons as the New York Riptide. In November 2022, they extended their lease at the Coliseum for multiple years and then even into that third season, their eyes were on further growth and introducing box lacrosse to a lacrosse hotbed. Until it couldn’t.

Las Vegas Sands purchased the site of Nassau Coliseum in 2023 and intended on demolishing the arena and building a real estate project centered around a casino complex, accelerating the need for the Riptide to find a new home, which they did in Ottawa.

At the time of the announcement, GF and Senators Sports & Entertainment spoke of the working relationship they intended to have going forward. It’s not clear what has changed between then and now, but by then by June, the following announcement was made by the National Lacrosse League:

Much of GF’s staff is based out of NYC, and former GM Rich Lisk left the organization at the conclusion of the first season in Ottawa and now is the CEO of CityLax, which could be a reason why GF wasn’t focused on the Ottawa-Gatineau region for the long term in their investment portfolio, but the statement suggesting the league terminated the ownership could suggest more to it. We will not be entertaining any rumors about the reasoning in this post.

On the Senators side, with the PWHL’s Charge moving in to the Canadian Tire Centre next season, there are going to be less arena dates available. Some have suggested even as early as last summer that a move to TD Place, the home of the Ottawa 67s and the former home of the Charge, could be better for the Black Bears to promote themselves without the hurdle of the drive to Kanata that has been something that Sens fans have aired grievances over for decades now. Then the issue became finding an owner.

And after all of that, in April 2025, Las Vegas Sands backed out of the casino plan, leaving the Coliseum standing, with the Long Island Nets of the NBA G League still playing at the iconic venue. While Sands still owns the land, they appear to still be looking to sell. The 2020s, man.

Why it failed in Philadelphia

The NLL’s aspirations to expand from 9 to 20 teams was foundationally centered around to the league returning to Philadelphia after the previous iteration of the Wings left for New England ahead of the 2015 season.

Of course, this story cannot be told without the context of Nick Sakiewicz starting his tenure as the league’s commissioner in January 2016. Coming from MLS where he was the CEO and an Operating Partner of the Philadelphia Union, he saw the similarities of the NLL’s space in the sports landscape compared to where MLS was in the decades prior before its growth to a 30 team league as it stands today. In July 2016, the league relocated their corporate HQ from NYC to the Philadelphia area, and weeks after, the new commissioner was already discussing how discussions to return a franchise to Philadelphia were already ongoing. After the expansion announcement itself, they also moved their production studio from Oakville to Philadelphia.

Right from the jump, expansion was the talk. In an interview with John Chidley-Hill of the Canadian Press in 2016, Sakeiwicz talked about expansion strategy.

The expansion plans that they had laid out in that first summer did come to fruition. From Sports Business Journal in August 2016, Sakiewicz said while there are no hard deadlines, the league would like to add a couple of teams in 2018, two more in 2020 and two more in 2022.

The 2018 teams were the “blue chip, five-star…owners” On Philadelphia:

It was top of the list because the team existed in the league when it first started. It was around for 25 years. It was kind of sad at the time that ownership was put into a situation where they had to move the team to New England. That team now is the Black Wolves and they’re flourishing with the Mohegan Sun tribe along with (ex-Wings owner) Mike French and his group. But it was sad that they left Philly. So when I became commissioner, after doing all of the research and looking at attendance numbers and seeing all of the video of those great Philadelphia memories, it was, ‘we have to be back in Philadelphia again.’ That was a cornerstone of our expansion strategy. We got the right owner, in the right building, in the right marketplace.

Crossing Broad, 2017

Despite a 4-14 record in their first season in 2018-19, the team averaged attendance of 10,905 and only once, in the last home game of their season, dropped under 10,000. They peaked at 12,688 on January 12, 2019. The organization, headed by Dave Scott as Comcast Spectacor’s President/CEO, had recovered the market after average attendance of the former franchise had steadily fallen from 10,537 in 2009 to 6,864 in their final season in 2014. Into the 2020 season, while attendance hovered around an average of 8,000 per game, the team had shot up the standings and found themselves 7-3 through their first 10 games. It was a foundational step towards a Les Bartley Award and GM of the Year award for Paul Day in year 2. Kevin Crowley was on a 90 point pace to lead the forwards, while Matt Rambo had 22 goals and 34 assists in his second season of box lacrosse. In net, Zach Higgins was holding down the fort with a 9.44 GAA and an .815 save percentage. While they had dropped their next 3 games after that 7-3 start, they rebounded with a 12-11 win over the Swarm.

That was March 8, 2020. That was the peak of the third iteration of the Philadelphia Wings. And frankly, the peak of Sakiewicz’s aspirations for a 20 team league.

Quick drop in of an Author’s take, while I am admittedly within the trees and not the outside of the forest in this particular area of expertise, I’m surprised at the lack of acknowledgement of the pandemic having lingering impacts in sports at all levels of profession, not just in a league the size of the NLL. The landscape of both North American economics and professional sports are simply different than they were 6 years ago. Heck, the Chicago Bears are about to move to Indiana and the Los Angeles Lakers have been sold twice in 14 months. The Atlanta Falcons are in talks to give 10% stake to private equity. The Timberwolves and Suns might be next to be sold quickly too. The NFL now has a 10% stake in ESPN, who has equity in the PLL and WLL. Banana Ball is going to be the highest level of professional baseball next year.

People online like to take the NLL marketing itself as The Next Major League and turn it back on them when they have bad or generally weird press, but it’s not like the major leagues are a beacon of a high standard right now.

There is no “normal” anymore, and if there is normal, it’s only investing in the things that return the most money as quickly as possible with limited effort. When the people with the money are talking about investing in sports, they’re not talking about spending what needs to be spent — not operating businesses to be write-offs. They’re talking about hopping on board the Number Go Up train to turn that money into more money while Capital One and State Farm play their commercials. Okay carry on.

Out of the pandemic, the Wings picked up the west’s crossover wild card spot for their first playoff berth at 9-9 before losing to the top seeded Seals in the first round. While they’d finish 9-9 again in 2023, it was not enough to qualify for the playoffs a second year in a row. Things went in the wrong direction in 2024 but did lead to them picking Brennan O’Neill first overall in the entry draft and adding Nick Damude in the dispersal draft. After starting 5-2 in 2025, an 8 game losing streak marked the end of that core and team went in a younger direction in 2026, accepting that their aggressive trades for Mitch Jones, Chris Corbeil, and Mitch de Snoo did not come to fruition to get them another postseason berth.

As this was happening, Dave Scott retired during the 2023 season. While it’s unknown what took place between then and October 2025 when it was revealed that last offseason’s CBA negotiation delays included Philadelphia being one of the franchise concerns in addition to Albany (who moved to Oshawa) and Rochester (who were purchased by the Seneca Nation), what we do know is that Comcast Spectacor announced that they would be removing the Wings from [their] portfolio at the conclusion of this past season. In a statement to Inside Lacrosse: as part of that announcement timeline:

As part of our ongoing evaluation of long-term business priorities, the Wings franchise no longer aligns with our strategic direction. We remain focused on driving growth across our sports and entertainment portfolio, including building the Philadelphia Flyers into a Stanley Cup contender and partnering with HBSE to deliver a world class arena in South Philadelphia.

Comcast Spectacor spokesperson

To bring it full circle, in May, Nick Sakiewicz did another interview with Kevin Kinkead of the Philadelphia sports blog, Crossing Broad, just as he did in 2017.

“I only know [Dan Hilferty, Dave Scott’s replacement as President/CEO of Spectacor] from my time at the Union, when he was CEO of Blue Cross/Blue Shield,” Sakiewicz explained. “Obviously he’s a smart guy and a very good businessman, so I don’t know what the discussions were like when he took over. But they must have their reasons. I thought the Wings were such a perfect fit for the whole Philadelphia ethos and lifestyle. It’s a gritty sport inside a hockey arena. I thought it was just such a great fit. And when Dave was there, we put that deal together. Shawn Tilger (former Flyers EVP and COO) was running ticket sales, and they were one of the best-performing teams in the league, ticket sales-wise at the time. They were kind of a flagship for me at the time to go out and line up a bunch of other NHL teams who were super interested. That league really needed more NHL teams because the business model, tucking a lacrosse team into the NHL operation was very successful. All of our NHL teams made money back when I was commissioner. We were using that to convince other expansion markets to tie in to a lacrosse team. All of those teams made money and some even made more EBITDA than their hockey operation, believe it or not, just because they were really efficiently run live events in an arena. The Wings were a flagship, Vancouver was a flagship, Toronto was a flagship – although they weren’t owned by the Maple Leafs, but they had a very similar mentality. Buffalo – the Sabres ownership owned the Bandits. They were the best financially performing team. So it was a really good model and I was trying to get the league to expand more. My goal was to get the league into 30 markets, maybe more, to grow the sport and grow the footprint. The Wings were my poster child. Wings, Vancouver, Toronto, Buffalo, Halifax Thunderbirds – they were our flagship teams. Some of these teams were selling out their arenas.”

Crossing Broad, 2026

The former commissioner, who also mentioned how the COVID years taking a toll on him was a big reason he stepped down from the position in February 2022, still seems convinced that the model of NHL teams adding the NLL to their portfolios is a strategy for a good lacrosse partnership, but then the question comes what is their definition of good? On one hand, we have heard speculation that Oilers Entertainment Group is one of the groups interested in potential NLL expansion. Buffalo, Calgary, and Colorado have been pillars of the league for decades now. Vancouver finds themselves in that conversation now too with the team finding success the last two seasons that it had not had previously.

But for Philadelphia and Ottawa, that door is closed. The owners of the Flyers and Senators have their eyes elsewhere, whether it’s real estate development, leagues with faster ROI, etc.

And at the end of the day, that is a big reason why the current leadership at the league office has their focus on foundational sustainability of their remaining 12 franchises.

The decision follows extensive efforts by the League to identify viable paths forward for both franchises. The NLL evaluates the long-term sustainability of its member clubs across several core areas, including committed ownership, venue and lease conditions, local market infrastructure, operational capabilities and sustained investment in the fan experience.

“Today is a difficult day for the National Lacrosse League and, most importantly, for the fans, players, employees and partners who have supported the Ottawa Black Bears and Philadelphia Wings,” said NLL Commissioner Brett Frood. “These are proud lacrosse markets with passionate communities, and we are grateful to everyone who has invested their time, energy and belief in these clubs. As we enter our 40^th anniversary season, our responsibility is to provide certainty for our constituents and move forward with 12 active member clubs aligned behind the League’s collective future.”

Ottawa and Philadelphia remain important markets to the NLL. The League will consider future opportunities in either community if the long-term conditions and partners necessary to support a sustainable franchise are established.

From the NLL’s official Press Release – 9/10/2026

Dispersal Draft

A dispersal draft will take place at 4:00 pm on Tuesday September 15. This is the first time that two teams have been dispersed at once, which caused speculation of how that would be addressed. They announced the addition to the bylaws that, “clubs will select in reverse order based on their regular-season winning percentages over the two most recently completed seasons, with the most recent season weighted at 70 percent. The reigning NLL Finals champion will select last.”

After the dispersal draft, free agency will begin at 5:00 pm on Friday September 18. The NLL Draft will take place at 6:00 pm on Thursday September 24.

The Pickings

1. Oshawa FireWolves
2. Las Vegas Desert Dogs
3. Rochester Knighthawks
4. Calgary Roughnecks
5. San Diego Seals
6. Halifax Thunderbirds
7. Colorado Mammoth
8. Georgia Swarm
9. Buffalo Bandits
10. Saskatchewan Rush
11. Vancouver Warriors
12. Toronto Rock

At the top of the draft order are four teams that had unexpectedly down years in 2026, and like the Colorado Mammoth before selecting Will Malcom at the top of the 2024 Panther City Dispersal Draft, they will have the first cracks at elite talent to add to the fold.

For Oshawa, the conversation will start and end with Jeff Teat. The Black Bears captain battled injuries all season and still played all 18 games and eclipsed 100 points. Entering his Age 29 season, he’ll become the second oldest forward on the team, only 15 days younger than fellow lefty Dawson Theede. Ethan Walker, Alex Simmons, and Tye Kurtz tasted NLL Finals action ahead of schedule back in 2024 but have not returned to the playoffs since. Teat could be the calming force to get them back on that track while helping to elevate that trio and Dyson Williams to somewhere that Teat has never gone in his 5 year career — the NLL Playoffs.

The Desert Dogs passed on Nick Damude two years ago in favor of Jonathan Donville, but now he might be available to them again at pick #2 just as he was the last time. They have 19 year old Caleb Khan waiting in the shadows, but if the Landon Kells and Alex Buque starter-reliever strategy they went with down the stretch last season isn’t something they would like to repeat, one of Nick Damude, Zach Higgins, or Deacan Knott will likely catch the attention of Shawn Williams and staff, who are still looking for their franchise’s first ever playoff berth.

Rochester’s struggles on defense were in no small part to the absence of Ryland Rees in 2026, as the also 29 year old played only 1 game due to a season-long battle with injury. After signing a three-year contract extension in the end of July, Rees could be joined on the back end by another former top 3 draft pick on defense in the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Callum Jones. In his third NLL season, Jones did a lot to earn that honor, scooping 173 loose balls, causing 32 turnovers, and adding 11 blocked shots and 11 points on 3 goals and 8 assists in a full 18 game season. The addition of Jones and the return of Rees would be very beneficial for new D coach Phil Sanderson in his quest to keep the ball out of the Knighthawk net.

The Roughnecks had a changing of the guard to a younger roster last season that really opens up the board to go anywhere in a dispersal draft. Both teams being eastern based is something that Mike Board’s crew would need to consider in case it causes potential travel and commitment concerns, but they do have a handful of Ontario guys so it’s not a deal-breaker. This all being said, it would be very hard for Calgary to pass on Brennan O’Neill to team up on the left side with Tanner Cook and Brayden Mayea. Both the Roughnecks and Wings have been weekend practice teams, so it would just be the extra travel and not missed practices that would potentially deter them. While the expectation is that Vegas (another weekend practice team) will take Damude, if they take O’Neill, that would only shake things up even more for the Roughnecks selection.

With San Diego, Halifax, and Colorado after Calgary, O’Neill probably won’t have to wait much longer than that, but I would imagine every team will be giving the 24 year old a call between now and the 15th to gauge interest. It’s not lost on anyone that O’Neill plays for the Denver Outlaws in the PLL, and Colorado made the biggest splash of the season last year trading for fellow American Jack Hannah.

After the first four selections, the playoff teams would be next up with many ways that they each could go too depending on what their expectations are with their pending free agents. Where things get toughest in projecting this out is knowing how a dispersal means around 50 roster jobs are going to be lost on already pretty deep rosters as it is.

For Buffalo at pick 9, they are the team most likely to take a goaltender. Nick Damude outperformed Zach Higgins last season statistically, .811 save percentage vs .776. With Damude still being only 27 compared to Higgins at 35, teams will likely lean towards him as their preference if available at pick 9, but Deacan Knott won’t be much farther behind the two, as the Peterborough native who turns 24 in September performed well in his relief duties this season, finishing with a .792 save percentage. One if not more of them will likely be available when the Bandits pick in the middle of the round, which we discussed following Vinc’s retirement announcement. With Higgins being a former Bandit, he is probably the likeliest pick of the three.

• Righty Forwards: The right side of the offenses of Ottawa and Philadelphia will have much more attention early in the draft than the left side, with Rob Hellyer coming off a 99 point season in his first year in Ottawa and Connor Kearnan having a reputation of being one a perennial 20 goal scorer. From the Wings, the young trio of 26 year old Sam LeClair, 25 year old Dalton young, and 21 year old Lukas Nielsen ended the season on a high note and gave the organization optimism on that side of the floor moving forward, but unfortunately that won’t come to fruition. Young is another American forward living on the east coast, which could make him of interest to Georgia, but they too could go in many directions off their trip to the semifinals. Nielsen could return to Buffalo after he was traded to the Wings in the Joe Resetarits deal. Being a BC native does open the full map up for him as well. Michael Sowers will also be out there for the taking, but the Philadelphia native will be less likely to play for another market given his PLL status and durability struggles. Another piece of note from the right side comes someone who played for both teams last year, as 32 year old Phil Caputo has played both sides of the floor in his career and wore a letter for Panther City before joining the Wings, who traded him to Ottawa at the deadline.
• Lefty Forwards: Journeymen Eric Fannell and Kyle Jackson represent the left side of the Wings offense after O’Neill and both could be of interest to teams that are only looking for depth role players in the dispersal process. Ottawa featured Reilly O’Connor as a point guard option with Larson Sundown being one of the best finishers around the net and Sam Firth also in the mix after playing last season for his hometown team. Landen Sinfield played 8 games as a rookie last season; the 23 year old could be an option later in the draft as a practice roster candidate.
• Defense: The back door features plenty to choose from as well for the teams looking to improve their defense even after Callum Jones is off the board. Brent Noseworthy and Matt Marinier were the size options from Ottawa this season. Matt’s brother Alex will join the Thunderbirds offense this season after his D+1 season, he and Nova Scotia native Alex Pace are both options that the Halfiax Thunderbirds will likely have interest in. The 22 year old Mitchell Armstrong is also a likely candidate to go early in the draft. The St. Catharines native caused 12 turnovers and blocked 9 shots in 15 games last season for the Wings and was an early declarer in his draft year in 2023. Jake Stevens has started his career with 2 80 loose balls seasons for Ottawa after going 10th overall in the 2023 draft. He also caused 26 turnovers this season. Veteran options with more games on the odometer include Kevin Brownell and Luc Magnan from Ottawa and Scott Dominey, Ryan Wagner, Liam Patten from the Wings, as well as their captain last season, 38 year old Chris Corbeil. Isaiah Davis-Allen is another American option to watch for being selected. For teams looking for a faceoff guy, Bo Columbus won 46.4% of his after going 15th overall in last year’s draft. He also chipped in on the defensive end of the floor. Jay Thorimbert may get taken as well, but at age 40 coming off a season in which he only played 5 games, he is more likely to retire or be a camp option in a faceoff competition. Other names to look for to potentially come off the board include Patrick Foley, Ron John, Ben Kromer, and Evan Messenger from Philadelphia, and Nicholas Volkov, Andrew Borgatti, Jake Saunders, and Reed Kurtz from Ottawa.

The draft will continue until every player has been selected or every team has passed on a selection. The remaining players will become free agents.

The franchise musical chairs has impacts on the entry draft as well, as Oshawa’s first pick having been in possession of the Black Bears means that Rochester moves up to the first overall spot, followed by Toronto (Calgary’s pick), Vancouver (Ottawa’s pick), Las Vegas, San Diego, and then Buffalo at 6 overall. The Wings also had the 17th and 18th overall picks, the 29th overall pick, the 37th and 38th picks in the third round, three picks in the fourth, and the first pick of the fifth. After #2 overall, Ottawa was not salted to pick again until 43rd overall. They also had two picks in the fourth, one in the fifth, and one in the sixth.

Teams that currently own either Philadelphia or Ottawa picks will have them fall to the end of those rounds, as Halifax has with their 15th overall pick in this upcoming draft, which was Panther City’s, who traded it to Albany for Tony Malcom in September 2022 before the FireWolves traded it to Halifax for Eric Fannell. If Philadelphia or Ottawa had another team’s pick, the pick is vacated, as with Oshawa’s third round pick that was traded to Panther City as part of the aforementioned Malcom trade. It would mean Vancouver jumps up to the first pick of the third round, owning Rochester’s from the Brad McCulley trade.

Looking ahead to future drafts, Philadelphia owned Ottawa’s pick via the Zach Higgins trade back in September 2024. Philadelphia had Rochester’s second round pick from the Blaze Riorden trade and Oshawa had Ottawa’s. The Bandits have Philadelphia’s sixth round pick. In 2028, Oshawa owns Ottawa’s second round pick and Philadelphia owned San Diego’s. The Wings owned Buffalo’s third round pick, while Vegas owns Philadelphia’s as well as Ottawa’s fourth. And finally, Buffalo owns Ottawa’s sixth round pick. Fear not, there have been no picks traded in any further out drafts than that.

We’ll have more to come following the Dispersal Draft, including takeaways from Brett Frood’s interview with Teddy Jenner and Pat Gregoire that will be posted this evening on the Off The Crossbar Podcast at 7:00 pm tonight (Still 9/10 if you are reading this before 7).

(Photo Credit: Buffalo Bandits)