Premier Lacrosse League Launches Women’s Lacrosse League, to Debut in February 2025

Paul Rabil, cofounder and president of the PLL, shares how the new league will create opportunity for elite women’s lacrosse players.

Women’s Lacrosse League / Courtesy of the WLL

Last week was a major one for women in sports, as the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) announced the launch of the Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL), set to debut at the 2025 PLL Championship Series in February.

We had the chance to catch up with Paul Rabil, cofounder and president of the Premier Lacrosse League, to learn all about the trailblazing new venture. The WLL has been a long time coming, according to Rabil, as the PLL has been helping to accelerate women’s lacrosse since it was founded in 2018. First was a partnership with the now defunct Women’s Professional Lacrosse League (WPLL), followed by youth PLL Play camps for girls, a women’s lacrosse media business, this year’s women’s lacrosse exhibition event and more.

Paul Rabil / Courtesy of the WLL

“This has been a part of our business since we started, but formalizing it and taking it to the next level marks our largest investment to date,” Rabil tells SI Swimsuit of the WLL. “And [it’s] why we’re really excited and also really confident because this isn’t our first time.”

Gearing up for the Women’s Lacrosse League’s debut

The WLL will officially debut at the 2025 PLL Championship Series early next year, with four teams competing for the inaugural WLL Championship Series trophy. The tournament will be played in lacrosse sixes, a fast-paced format of the sport, which is set to make its return to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles for the first time in 80 years.

While women’s lacrosse has never been played in the Olympics, men competed in the sport in 1904 and ’08, and lacrosse was featured as a participatory sport in both 1932 and ’48. The launch of the WLL is primed for the forthcoming summer games, as women lacrosse athletes train and compete to secure their spot in the 2028 Olympics.

The WLL Championship Series will be held at The St. James sports complex in Springfield, Va., on a yet-to-be-announced date range in February, where WLL teams will compete in a round robin ahead of the semi-finals and championship games. Rabil shares that compensation packages between the WLL and PLL are equal, and athletes will earn a wage in addition to a purse for placing first, second, third and fourth in the tournament, which will be televised on ESPN.

“Our goal is to continue to provide opportunities for the best women’s lacrosse players in the world to find economic prosperity, doing the thing that they love the most, to find additional opportunities to compete, train and win a championship, and be additive to the overall environment,” Rabil says of his plans for the WLL.

Creating a lasting impact in women’s lacrosse

While the WLL’s four teams, rosters and cities will be announced at a later date, Rabil says the organization is first considering the eight home team markets where the PLL currently resides, including Boston, New York, Maryland, Philadelphia, Carolina, Utah, Denver and California.

SI Swimsuit’s very own Alex Aust Holman, a professional lacrosse player and 2021 Swim Search finalist, has already signed on to participate in the WLL. Aust Holman played for the Division I University of Maryland before being named to the U.S. national team, and she currently serves as the women’s assistant lacrosse coach for the Terrapins.

Alex Aust Holman / Courtesy of the WLL

The lifelong athlete is excited for the world to see women’s lacrosse in a new light, and hopes to leave the sport better than she found it through her participation in the WLL.

“I think that every person is a lacrosse fan, you just don’t know it yet,” Aust Holman tells us. “It just combines everything we love about sports. It’s fast, it’s physical, it’s impressive, it’s creative. Every person plays it differently. It’s impressive because it’s a skill sport, like golf or hockey, but it also has the athleticism of basketball and the endurance of soccer, the physicality of football, so there’s so much excitement around it.”

Rabil, who describes the game of lacrosse as “very skillful, creative, fast and physical,” believes that the increased viewership and interest among women’s sports over the last several years is a movement, not a moment, and one that bodes well for the future of women’s lacrosse.

“There’s 125 Division I women’s lacrosse programs compared to 75 Division I men’s lacrosse programs,” Rabil shares. “So we’re seeing a lot of increase in participation, where if we do our job as the pro league and drive awareness to tune in and [offer] additional ways to play, that those numbers should translate well.”

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