The National Lacrosse League, North America’s top league for box lacrosse, has signed a new agreement with Castore, a Manchester, England-based sportswear company, to make it the league’s performance apparel maker.
This marks Castore’s first league-wide apparel agreement with a North American sports league. Castore will provide jerseys at the NLL’s draft this Sunday and will provide on-field uniforms for the 2024-25 season. The Castore deal is the NLL’s first league-wide uniform partnership in over a decade; NLL teams were previously outfitted by Reebok from 2006 through 2013, but individual teams had signed their own uniform deals in the years since.
Founded by brothers Tom and Phil Beahon in 2015, Castore might be best known for outfitting the Formula 1 Red Bull and McLaren teams, partnerships which have gained more attention over the years thanks to F1’s surge in popularity and the success of reigning F1 champion and current points leader Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
“It is difficult to hyperbolize the alignment of the NLL and Castore’s ethos and challenger mentality,” NLL league commissioner Brett Frood said in a statement. “Tom and Phil have been relentless in pushing boundaries, amplifying teams and athletes, and creating premium products. Together, we are committed to elevating our respective brands to new heights and utilizing this partnership as a laboratory of innovation and disruption.”
Castore weathered some criticism for the performance of its uniforms last fall, particularly from Aston Villa’s men’s and women’s clubs, which ended their agreement with the company in January. However, the brand continues its partnerships with multiple soccer clubs, including the Premier League’s Everton and Bundesliga champion Bayer Leverkusen. It also provides apparel for Hendrick Motorsports, USA Rugby and the men’s and women’s national cricket teams for England and Wales.
One of Castore’s investors is tennis legend Andy Murray, who wore the company’s apparel from 2019 until calling it a career last month at the Paris Olympics.
“We’re extremely proud to be supplying our high-performance sportswear league-wide and are excited about the opportunities this collaboration represents, for even more teams and individual athletes globally to experience the premium quality and performance of Castore,” Tom Beahon said in a statement.
The NLL, which began play in 1987, is at an interesting crossroads as it aims to bring the indoor version of the game to more fans, especially outside of the well-worn markets in the Eastern seaboard. The league frequently says that its game looks like the NHL but plays like the NBA. By branding itself as “the next major league,” the NLL hopes that the crossover of the most popular indoor leagues continues to attract newcomers to the sport.
Nine of its 15 teams are in the U.S. while the remaining six are in Canada, including the Ottawa Black Bears, who relocated from New York’s Long Island ahead of the upcoming season. Last week, the league had a dispersal draft after the shuttering of Dallas-Fort Worth’s franchise, the Panther City Lacrosse Club.
