Lacrosse Card Landscape: The PLL

The trading card world experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity in conjunction with the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. Likely due to a combination of factors which included boredom, a complete lack of sports to watch and/or bet on, and an infusion of cash via government payments, people began purging and purchasing sports cards at a rate never before seen. New card sets were issued with greater frequency and secondary market prices shot through the roof.

On June 1, 2019, the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) opened its inaugural season with a 14-week, tour-based schedule. The new league capitalized on the increased interest in the sport and the hobby when it was announced that Topps would produce a 97-card set recognizing the 2020 PLL Championship Series. 

Topps issued the cards in an on-demand format, meaning that the number of cards printed was determined by preordered packs. The cards were available for sale from August 3 through September 19 and resulted in 4,674 packs being produced. Each pack held a minimum of eight base cards, while some packs contained a ninth card in the form of an autograph, parallel or other insert. Base parallels came in Yellow & Black (/25), Orange (/10), Red (/5) and Gold (1/1) while autograph parallels were produced in Orange (/10), Red (/5) and Gold (1/1).

The set contained rookie cards or the first nationally issued cards of many of the game’s recent stars such as Blaze Riorden, Kyle Harrison, Tom Schreiber, Ryder Garnsey, Matt Rambo and Trevor Baptiste. As the first Topps PLL issue, these cards have maintained a desirability among collectors that surpasses anything else the league has issued in the years since.

Following the popularity of the Championship Series set, Topps and the PLL issued a second on-demand set in 2021, which they called the First Edition. Packs were available for order from November 29 to December 23. Standard packs again contained eight cards, with some packs containing a parallel that followed the previous Black & Yellow (/25), Orange (/10), Red (/5) and Gold (1/1) formats; autographed cards were not part of the issue.

This 55-card set consists solely of rookies and first and second team All-Pros. With a solid rookie class (e.g., Jeff Teat, Michael Sowers, TD Ierlan, Mac O’Keefe, Tre Leclaire, and Danny Logan) and many stars such as Paul Rabil, Lyle Thompson, Michael Ehrhardt, Trevor Baptiste and Blaze Riordan, the checklist is dense with significant cards.

Unlike the Championship Series which could only be ordered through the Topps website, fans were able to order the First Edition set on either the Topps or PLL websites. This slight change resulted in a significant logistical issue, however. 

Topps released the following hit rates (the average rate at which parallels would be found in packs) with sales information for these cards as follows:

• Yellow and Black (/25) – 1:15 packs
• Orange (/10) – 1:36 packs
• Red (/5) – 1:73 packs
• Gold (1/1) –  1:364 packs

However, once cards were shipped to collectors it became obvious that something was wrong. It was ultimately determined that nearly all packs that contained parallels were available only through the Topps website. Collectors who had purchased through the PLL website essentially received only packs with base cards. As an example, there were only two parallels in the 403  packs I purchased through the PLL website. Popular lacrosse journalist Dan Arestia took a deeper dive into the issue and wrote at length on Medium in January 2022.

The problem forced Topps to rectify the situation by producing a completely new series of what they called “Make Good Parallels” in Yellow (/99), Purple (/75,) Blue (/50), Green (/25), Pink (/15), Silver (/10), Rainbow (/5) and Black (1/1). For every pack of cards ordered through the PLL website, Topps issued a single-card pack containing a random Make Good Parallel. While this solution could be perceived as generous, the influx of new rarities on a relatively small collector base resulted in the prices of these cards dropping significantly on the secondary market. 

Topps and the PLL combined to produce a third lacrosse card set in 2022, but moved away from the on-demand format and instead issued a flagship set consisting of a 200-card base, full parallel lineup, autographs and other inserts. The set was eagerly anticipated by collectors, but the final product left much to be desired.

The main complaint against the base set was that the design made it difficult for collectors to immediately recognize whether a card was base or one of several parallels. A triangular top-left corner and partial left border are all that differentiates one variety from another, and those differences can be subtle. The insert sets are generic and lack creativity.

Beyond design, the set suffers from a lack of quality control during production. The back copy on many cards was simply copied from the First Edition set without being updated. Text was identical and players who were shown as having no professional experience with the First Edition set still showed no experience with Flagship in spite of having played in two seasons at that point.

Autograph cards of nearly 20 players have yet to be seen in spite of their names being part of the autograph checklist. Brodie Merrill autographs have been found in the Red (/10) parallel format, but not in Orange (/25) or base versions. Cards have also been seen with incorrect parallel stamps (Red /10 cards were instead stamped with 1/1 designations) and in at least one case two copies of the same card have surfaced with a #01/50 stamp.

In truth, lacrosse is not the only sport to have suffered recently from Topps’ lack of quality control. However, these issues felt particularly egregious when lacrosse collectors are lucky to only get one or two sets in a calendar year. In fact, the 2023 calendar year came and went without a new PLL set. While the Rabils have made cryptic comments on Twitter about cards forthcoming, nothing more has been seen to this point.

It is a frustrating position for fans who love the sport and want to support the league but have nothing new to add to their collections. The unreliable release schedule also stifles any momentum that lacrosse had built within the hobby. The result is that although lacrosse may be considered the oldest sport in North America, it is still in its infancy stage in terms of becoming a legitimate hobby genre. Time will tell where we go from there.