^I had no idea Hopkins was in the Big 10 for lacrosse! Learn something new every day. However, when I just looked, it was Maryland that was ahead, not Hopkins.
Edit: Oh wait, never mind, I was looking at conference standings, not rankings.
Hopkins only joined for B1G last year (2 years ago?), and only plays D1 in lacrosse. Rutgers has a big recruiting advantage over the old school B1G teams (certainly not over Hopkins or Maryland) since it is in the heart of lax country.
I admit I overlooked Maryland being ahead of Rutgers (and it is, as Maryland played for the national championship last year). Still not used to the new B1G 10, or the Supersized Humongous 15, or the I-Can-Name-All-the-States Conference. Still, Rutgers is not the B1G doormat in lacrosse.
The question is a Big 10 football stadium filled is 70,000 plus (The Big House holds 100,000+ I think)…I had a kid who plays Lacrosse, but I don’t know that LaCrosse can fill 70,000 seats. Maybe I don’t know how “big” it is in the NE.
It the old days, Hopkins-Maryland used to fill a pretty good sized stadium, but not The Big House numbers. Homewood (Hopkins) holds 8500.
They are playing the national championship in Gillette Stadium next year. Plenty of good seats still available.
Conference titles earned to date by the most recent additions to the Big Ten:
9 Maryland
8 Nebraska
1 Johns Hopkins (associate member in lacrosse)
0 Rutgers
In recent years, the D1 men’s lacrosse final game has [url=http://www.laxpower.com/common/NCAA-Attendance.php]drawn[/url] 25,000 to 50,000. Not 70,000, but still a respectable crowd.
In some years, the NCAA lacrosse tournament has actually been the top NCAA post-season event, in terms of onsite attendance. Although it must be acknowledged that (1) in football, post-season FBS bowl games aren’t technically NCAA events, and (2) in basketball, the NCAA tournament is often played in indoor arenas with limited capacities.
Keep an eye on women’s soccer.
Yes, but to make a big impact on uni revenue streams they would need alot of kids to go to all the LaCrosse games…or at least shell out the $300 or so for season tickets. That is the kicker - football and basketball at some unis are the reason that other sports aren’t eliminated or pay for play. I know the ski team at my #1 son’s college got discontinued and it took the alumni to give the school enough bucks to endow a program and get it reinstated. Now Nevada who lopped their ski team a year or so ago is trying the same tactic of getting alumni financial support. Love it or hate it football and basketball are big business and revenue streams for universities.
Nope, lacrosse is not a “revenue sport”. At the most successful programs, it might break even.
In the long term, it’s possible that lacrosse could become more prominent on the college sports scene. First, lacrosse has been growing fast in popularity at the high school level. Second, lacrosse is played in the spring – after the end of the college football, basketball, and hockey seasons.
If you run the Big Ten Network, you can broadcast football and soccer in the fall, and you can broadcast basketball and hockey in the winter. That’s well and good – but what do you air in the spring? You’ve got college baseball – which isn’t super popular – and what else? College golf? College tennis? Maybe lacrosse is worth a try.
Just to be clear, Big Ten lacrosse is still in its infancy. Michigan has only had varsity lacrosse since 2012, Rutgers and Maryland didn’t join the Big Ten until 2014, and Johns Hopkins joined (for men’s lacrosse only) in 2015. Penn State has had varsity lacrosse since 1913 and Ohio State since 1953, but there was no such thing as Big Ten conference lacrosse until 2014 when for the first time there were enough varsity lacrosse teams to make up a conference.
Maryland and Johns Hopkins are perennial powers, and I’d expect the other four schools to become more competitive over time. But I don’t think lacrosse has the potential to grow into a revenue sport, and for that reason I don’t think it’s likely other Big Ten schools will jump in anytime soon. Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State generate so much football revenue that they can afford to carry lacrosse, but most Big Ten athletic departments operate in the red overall, requiring subsidies from the central administration and/or from student fees. Lacrosse seems like a natural at Northwestern which has had a highly successful (as in multiple national championships) varsity women’s lacrosse team for a long time, but their football program isn’t a big revenue-maker, so it’s probably a financial issue. It’s different at the East Coast schools (Hopkins, Maryland, Rutgers) where lacrosse is a deep part of their culture and tradition, so they’ll just suck it up and subsidize it.
As for the Big Ten Network, if I’m not mistaken they already broadcast lacrosse in the spring. But nobody watches, so the revenue it generates must be pretty meager.
We watch (although a lot of the lax we watch is on ESPN-U). It doesn’t cost them much to broadcast a Lax game, and the fees are already charged to the cable providers, so I suspect there is a little profit. The BTN probably does set its cost to the cable companies based on football and basketball, but it doesn’t cost much to throw on hockey and lax and a few baseball games and it increases the bargaining power of BTN with the cable companies. I remember when ESPN first started, my brothers watched endless auto races, boat races, cheerleading competitions - the NFL was years away. Put sports on TV and we will watch.
I think some teams make enough to support at least the lax teams. When watching games on TV, some stadiums are pretty full. ND draws a crowd, Virginia, Duke pack them in.
There are also other ways to make money besides ticket sales. Advertising, merchandise, youth camps, and youth club teams. DU doesn’t have football, so the other teams have to carry more weight. Hockey is almost always sold out, women’s gymnastics is popular. The facilities are also rented out all the time, for everything from kids birthday parties in the pool/gym/climbing wall to high school graduations in the hockey/basketball arena. Between renting out facilities and having youth teams practicing year round (lax, hockey, gymnastics, swimming), the facilities don’t sit empty. Quite a bit of my money has gone to the DU athletic department over the years for camps, lessons, parties, and tickets to events. Even parking has cost me plenty.
Of course at many schools this is not the case. My daughter plays in front of crowds of 70 and most aren’t paying (students, parents are free). Because her school isn’t in a city, there isn’t as much need for youth sports or rental of facilities. I’m pretty sure outrageous tuition is funding sports.
“I had no idea Hopkins was in the Big 10 for lacrosse!”
In order to join the B10, Maryland needed to have a good conference to replace the ACC for its high end lax teams. NCAA requires six teams to form a conference and B10 only had five. Hopkins is a D3 school except for one D1 sport…lax, which was an independent. So a nice marriage of convenience.
But lax is a small time money loser everywhere in D1. There’s probably a hundred high school football teams in Texas that bring in more revenue and fan attendance than the biggest college lax program does.
I suppose next you’ll be claiming you had no idea that Notre Dame was in the Big Ten for hockey.
Exactly. I’m sure that the Big Ten Network and ESPN-U don’t get huge ratings for lacrosse in the spring – but what is the alternative? Would they get better ratings with other spring college sports, like golf, tennis, or track? Or by broadcasting reruns of long-completed basketball or football games? Or by going dark and telling the cable providers that they just don’t have anything to air?
No. BTN and ESPN-U need content to fill airtime in the spring. And their best option, besides baseball, is lacrosse: a fast-paced team sport, with clear similarities to hockey or soccer, which already has an established regional base. Such exposure may or may not move the needle for college lacrosse in the long run, but it certainly can’t hurt.
I don’t disagree and it is growing fast in the midwest. Michigan State is building their program and I could see them joining Michigan and the others some day, my son’s best high school lacrosse buddy was state ranked and “recruited” to play. It is building no doubt about that. It’s fun to watch. I’m not a huge football/basketball/baseball fan, but I like hockey and I liked watching S3 play Lacrosse in high school.
Did not know ND was joining big 10 hockey. That’s sort of neat.
Hey, we even watch youth lacrosse if they put it on TV. The World Series of Lax? Sure.
I don’t know why, but our cable company has the BTN and not the Pac 12, even though we live in Pac 12 country. Either BTN is cheaper or their geography is off.
It can be very good to be big-time school athlete in $$$ sport. Living like rockstars
http://i172.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/w31/southfew/E701D27B-E8C0-4CA6-B12A-BE4CCCBEA5D4_zpskqlczsob.jpg
@barrons, link is broken.