The National Lacrosse League is North America's professional indoor lacrosse league, featuring the best lacrosse players in the world. The NLL has eleven teams playing in the major markets of the United States and Canada.  NLL teams each play a 16-game regular season schedule (eight home & eight away) that begins in December and runs through April, followed by the Champion's Cup Playoffs.  All games are played on the weekends.  The teams are: Anaheim Storm, Arizona Sting, Buffalo Bandits, Calgary Roughnecks, Colorado Mammoth, Minnesota (new team, to be named) Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Knighthawks, San Jose Stealth, Toronto Rock and the Vancouver Ravens.  Most of the NLL clubs are owned and/or operated by the National Hockey League (NHL) and/or National Basketball Association (NBA) teams in their respective markets, and play in the same arenas used by those teams.  The league has just welcomed another NHL partner in the Minnesota Wild, who have purchased a new team to begin play in the upcoming season at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.  Professional indoor lacrosse combines the physical play of hockey with the high scoring, fast pace and play-making style of basketball.  Indoor lacrosse is played inside the confines of a NHL hockey rink, with glass and rink boards intact.  The playing surface consists of a green dieter turf carpet that is laid down over the hockey ice.  The two teams combine to score a total of 25 goals in the average NLL game.

The league's average attendance for the recently concluded 2003-04 season exceeded 10,000 fans per game. Games were televised weekly on regional Fox Sports Net stations in the US and on The Score Television Network in Canada.  The 2004-05 season will begin in late December.