The latest entry in Denver’s pro sports landscape will be decked out in black, gray and orange and channel an old West theme as the Denver Outlaws, one of four Major League Lacrosse expansion teams.
The Outlaws debut in Tuesday’s 13-round expansion draft. The Los Angeles Riptide, Chicago Machine and San Francisco Dragons are the other expansion teams, joining six teams established in 2001: the defending champion Baltimore Bayhawks, Long Island Lizard, Boston Cannons, New Jersey Pride, Philadelphia Barrage and Rochester Rattlers.
Jake Steinfeld is the founder of the league, and Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen is the owner of the Outlaws. The team will be operated by one of his subsidiaries, Edge Sports & Entertainment Inc., under the direction of Mac Freeman.
There are only four full-time employees in the front office, but marketing and sales positions are being filled. General manager Brian Reese will hire scouts to help with the supplemental draft on Jan. 14 and the college draft in May.
Training camp opens April 29 with a 35-man roster that will be reduced to 23 before the season opener in late May. A 12-game regular season, including six home games at Invesco Field at Mile High, ends Aug. 20.
Denver owns the third pick in draft, behind Los Angeles and San Francisco, and has a shot at an impact player because standouts Mark Millon, Tom Marachek and John Grant Jr. were left unprotected.
Millon finished third in the league in scoring with 56 points for Boston. He is the league’s career leader in points with 249.
Marachek scored 55 points for Baltimore, which is so talented it could part with him because of his salary – the original six teams were allowed to protect 10 players while staying under 56 percent of their salary cap.
Grant, a superstar in the indoor National Lacrosse League, scored 38 points last summer for the Rattlers.
Ideally, expansion teams build with a top-flight goalie, but because all the best goalies are protected, Reese plans to draft the best athletes available.
“I want fast, athletic guys,” he said. “I want a team that can run and score easy goals in transition.”
If an existing team loses three players, it can pull back one player from the protected list. If it loses four players, it can pull back another player, and so on.
“That was the solution to their concern that they would lose too much,” said Freeman, who views the draft setup as a fair compromise between giving the expansion teams a chance to succeed while leaving the existing teams with a core of talent.
Aside from goalie, face-off midfield is a crucial position, which might make Boston’s Peter Inge a high pick.
Another coveted midfielder is Chris Rotelli, who wowed fans in Denver last July while winning the freestyle contest in the MLL all-star game.
Reese also is interested in drafting players with local ties, including four current members of the NLL’s Colorado Mammoth who were left unprotected: Gavin Prout by Baltimore, Brian Langtry by Rochester and Dave Stilley and Jamie Hanford by New Jersey.
Prout, an NLL all-star who recently re-signed with the Mammoth, is not as committed to the field game, in part because he works full-time for an insurance company in Toronto.
The prospect of commuting to Denver for two seasons is daunting, but a new development will ease the expense. Instead of paying a flat $1,800 for travel to 12 games – a stipend that fell woefully short – 100 percent of travel fees will be paid by the expansion teams.
