LUG Sports CEO Ethan Wright on harnessing that big World Cup energy all year round

For this week’s MVP, we’re chatting with Ethan Wright.

Everyone’s enjoying the World Cup frenzy (go Canada!), and we’re jumping aboard with LUG Sports Group president and co-founder Ethan Wright. While he is psyched to watch Team Canada superstars like Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David dominate the field, Wright’s just as passionate that regular players—that is, amateur and recreational—get to play and enjoy sports. 

Since the beginning of LUG in 2009, then known as the League of Universities, they’ve been planning sports (and social) leagues for Canadian and American students—along with leagues that are open to adults in the community too, no university connection required.

“Everyone is welcome regardless of your background, circumstance or situation, and we are committed to eliminating any barriers to joining,” says the LUG website, and the company puts its money where its mouth is by offering discounts, accommodations and better access to any marginalized group. 

How did an environmental science student end up heading the largest student sports league and lifestyle community in North America? And should you sign up today? In today’s MVP column, Wright gives us a lesson on why sports truly are for everyone. 

Today’s the first day of the World Cup. Do you have any plans? 

I’m actually going today. I got tickets with friends and I’m so excited to witness history. This is game number one on Canadian soil, and that [first-ever match] will never happen again, so to me that’s a pretty unique and fun experience. Obviously, hopefully, Canada has a good game, we win and I get to be a proud Canadian fan. I’ll be one anyhow though; I’ve got my Canadian flag, Canada jersey and my Canada headband all ready to go.

I’m definitely embracing the moment, even if we lose. I’m a Toronto Leafs fan, so I’ve been disappointed my entire life. I’m pretty familiar with how that goes. I’ve had some lows with Toronto sports, but hopefully this is a high. My fingers are crossed.

[Editor’s note: Wright got his wish that evening, kind of, when Team Canada earned one point in a 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later won 6-0 against Qatar. Next game for Canada is on June 24 in Vancouver against Switzerland.]

Losing is an important part of sports, even when you’re awesome at them, which most people are not.

That’s the truth. Sports are supposed to be fun for everyone. LUG started out of a need for young people who want to keep playing. Lots of people learn a sport as kids, maybe they play house league or pursue something more competitive—for hockey, that’s Select, Single-A, Double-A, and so on. You’re used to playing the sport all the time, multiple days of the week, practices, high school teams, private coaches, games and tournaments. But when you get to university, a lot of that just ends. 

Minor sport is officially over for you because you’re no longer eligible. Maybe you join a varsity team, but there’s only 15 spots so it’s very competitive. Less than 1% of people make it. Intramurals are available to everybody, but the whole season’s only eight games without practices. I played on my university intramural. It was great, but it was only a short season. And I wanted to play more. I started LUG for those people, like me. 

How do you go from organizing a few guys playing hockey to developing an international business? 

When I went to Queen’s University, we started with a hockey league organized around the university and academic calendar. It was really a small thing, you might call it just a skate. We had six teams: blue, red, orange, et cetera. Through a friend, I met my business partner, Ray Abramson, who’d had the exact same idea at Western. Queen’s and Western have that historic rivalry, so we decided to bring the businesses together. We didn’t think of what we were doing as a business then. And we didn’t for a very long time, actually.

I just thought I was really into hockey, on the side, while looking for a job in corporate green initiatives. This was right when SnapChat was blowing up so players were often posting games on social media. That’s when people started messaging us to ask, can you bring this to Laurier? Can you bring this to Dalhousie, McGill, Guelph? I started thinking, maybe we can. Almost 10 years ago, I went back to school to do my MBA to get a better base in business fundamentals. 

How fast did LUG grow? 

We went from like two cities to four, then to eight and then to 10. The programs in each city were pretty small, maybe only four to six teams, but altogether it was starting to be a lot. Ray and I didn’t—and still don’t—have any investors. We don’t have any outside money or anything like that. We’ve just reinvested everything we can to keep making the experience better and better. We went from jerseys that read LUG to today’s full kits, with jerseys, socks, hats and sunglasses. We have chains for the MVP of the game. 

Now we do full stats so you can track and compare goals, assists and power-play points. Plus, it’s not just about hockey anymore. We also do co-ed softball, lacrosse, pickleball, flag football—even soccer this year, which we’re thinking might work because of the World Cup. 

We have 500 team accounts in more than 80 cities now, 75% in Canada and 25% are U.S.-based. We have 30 full-time working at the company and probably well over a thousand timekeepers, photographers, videographers, officials, game-based staff members and social media people. We’re one of the large employers on campuses for part-time work.

Is it more difficult, or easier, to scale up because you use the same model every time?

There’s definitely a “league in a box” component we’re thinking about. Like, how do we scale up and keep the program consistent? How do we bring the same experience to everybody? We want it to be like McDonald’s where the Big Mac is the same no matter where you are in the world. We want that same standard. 

So, you could show up to a game in a different city and have the same experience. At the same time, we want to stay flexible to our players. We had a virtual call this summer for all the women’s hockey leagues to talk about their experiences—all of it. Do you like the jerseys? Should they be bigger or smaller? Would you rather it be like the Professional Women's Hockey League programs with teams or more like historical NHL? Do you want us to adopt the PHWL rules or stick to traditional rules? 

I didn’t know you could do that? I always thought just like the sport is the sport, play it or don’t play it.

That’s the way a lot of people think, but we can change things to be more fun and community-based and engaging. We’re building the teams and leagues and programs in places that don’t exist for people who might otherwise not play at all. We can do it however they want. 

Our slogan at LUG is “Keep the dream alive.” It’s a self-deprecating joke that, you know, if you were going to make it professionally, you probably would have already made it by now. Not to say we don’t have some really good quality players, because we do, but the motivation is different. We’re offering a professional experience of being on a real team without any of the pressure. 

Why should someone sitting behind their computer add playing sports to their schedule?

Besides the obvious, to get active and keep healthy, playing sports is a great place to build friendship and camaraderie. It can be an amazing tool for business development and networking. 

When I worked in the corporate world, there were always hockey teams with executives playing. There’s always an organizational golf tournament, or tennis or pickleball. If you want a real opportunity to make a friend, to help grow your business or company, you can’t do much better than sports.

Read more from this issue of The Get:

1. Can you bring food to sports and concert stadiums in Canada?
2. How death and grief can affect your finances 
3. Buyer or seller: How to make deals at garage sales
4. Can someone buy a house on a limited pension?