(07-22-2019 06:55 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  I think we'll see another 6-8 P5 programs added in the next 6-8 years.

Depends on how many $15M+ gifts there are waiting to be plucked out of the ether. That's what Utah needed to start their program, and there's precedent for schools waiting for large gifts before expanding their sports offerings. A new sport demands a huge commitment from the university.

Just like with all the college hockey in California theories, unless there is a deliberate spearhead from boosters who vote with their wallets, the grandiose expansion of niche sports will not happen. And lacrosse is very, very niche. The national championship game drew 296,000 viewers this year, which is less than an average NHL regular season game on NBCSN.

Growing sport, yes. But from a tiny base in most of the country. As native Texans in Houston my son and daughter both played lacrosse in Middle School. (Both were crazy enough to be goalies, but that's a different discussion). Son went back to baseball in high school.


Here's the map of D1 programs. Yes, very regional.

Utah wound up #11 in attendance in its first year. Lacrosse will wind up outdrawing hockey and baseball at Utah within 5-10 years.

I played in hs and I don't watch it at all. Its gained some popularity over the years down in se Virginia and ne North Carolina as it spread south a bit but it's still very small in comparison to the volume of kids playing baseball.

I can see rugby becoming more popular than lacrosse.

I follow the Gallagher Premiership Rugby and NBC broadcast some of those games OTA and cable.

(07-22-2019 11:55 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-22-2019 11:28 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-22-2019 11:13 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Given the challenges in funding all non-revenue sports, it's hard to see many FBS or FCS schools adding lacrosse unless they have money to burn, or have wealthy donors who want to bankroll a lacrosse team.

So it has stronger growth prospects at the college level where it can replace an existing sport with dedicated facilities, relatively less support and high travel costs ... like baseball in the North, but quite UNLIKE baseball in the south.

College baseball could fight back for it's northern schools by shifting the NCAA championships to July to allow shifting the start date two weeks later in the Spring ... but it might not care enough to try.

Sorry. Michigan making the final in Omaha this year proves that no northern school can validly fall back on the weak "Waaaaaah, college baseball is too cold" excuse. Actually, Oregon State winning the CWS 3 times proved that already, except for everyone who thinks the entire west coast has the same winter weather as southern California.

Corvallis is a maritime climate. Typically a 15-degree difference for a continental climate of the same latitude.

Don't see it. College baseball is already quite popular and also growing.

The most popular sports in the country changes over time. When my Dad was born, baseball, horse racing and boxing were arguably the three most popular sports in the US.

I think concussions are overblown as an issue in viewership despite the effort to make fans care it just isn't that big of a deal.

The problem football has is much simpler. The younger part of the audience doesn't have the disposable income to spend to go to many games. Part of the younger audience got priced out when they were kids and either their parents didn't go, or if they did they left the kids with someone because they couldn't afford a third or fourth ticket.

3+ hours is more time than many want to invest in watching especially since that 3+ hours is bogged down with a twenty minute halftime, two more quarter breaks and a handful of 2:30 tv timeouts. The season is now longer so more games played in less pleasant weather. Hasn't been THAT long ago that Arkansas State would start the season on the third Saturday in September now its Labor Day weekend and more often than not any home game week one or two is played in sweltering weather. AState used to wrap up the Saturday before Thanksgiving now it is the last Saturday in November (and only because league added the title game, December games were becoming norm) and more often than not that last home date is cold and windy but occasionally you catch a break. Working in going to a Thanksgiving game is a mess if you are married and traveling to two families for the holiday.

Baseball viewership is down as well. Another sport demanding 3+ hours of the viewer's time and many breaks where nothing is happening.

I don't see football or baseball holding on to the fan interest they have because neither respects the fan's time.

(07-22-2019 11:55 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Sorry. Michigan making the final in Omaha this year proves that no northern school can validly fall back on the weak "Waaaaaah, college baseball is too cold" excuse.

That School Up North and the Buckeye's of the world can afford as many subsidy varsity sports as they want to play. They are not the schools that will be looking at whether to swap a sport with lower cost of travel and with facilities shared with other sports.

And of course they both already play Lacrosse in the Big Ten lacrosse conference, so if there's a wave running across the Great Lakes and Northern Plains anytime in the coming decade, they are already on their board.

Quote: Actually, Oregon State winning the CWS 3 times proved that already, except for everyone who thinks the entire west coast has the same winter weather as southern California.

You are seriously using a place where the February monthly average low is above freezing to "prove" that a mid February start of the NCAA baseball season doesn't benefit southern schools and the month on the road is not an extra expense to northern schools?

The reason people from the snow belt think that a place that is normally warmer than they are in the winter has relatively mild winters is because they view what they are used to as "normal" and anything that is normally warmer than that as "mild".

I surely always appreciated how mild the winters in Knoxville were, with three or four snowstorms a year but everything melting away in between ... but there were folk from the Gulf Coast who acted like it was the most frigid weather they had ever experienced (though the lack of insulation and central heating in the graduate student housing may have contributed to that).

The first SEC school to sponsor Lacrosse will open the floodgates to the south... club lacrosse and high school lacrosse is growing big time in the south... football is slowing some... the SEC has plenty of money and budgets to jump into the Lacrosse game... especially for content for the SEC network... it is well viewed... I hope I’m the next 3 or four years the first school takes it on...maybe Florida, Vanderbilt (both have girls already)...LSU... then Bama...

(07-23-2019 09:39 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  The most popular sports in the country changes over time. When my Dad was born, baseball, horse racing and boxing were arguably the three most popular sports in the US.

I think concussions are overblown as an issue in viewership despite the effort to make fans care it just isn't that big of a deal.

The problem football has is much simpler. The younger part of the audience doesn't have the disposable income to spend to go to many games. Part of the younger audience got priced out when they were kids and either their parents didn't go, or if they did they left the kids with someone because they couldn't afford a third or fourth ticket.

3+ hours is more time than many want to invest in watching especially since that 3+ hours is bogged down with a twenty minute halftime, two more quarter breaks and a handful of 2:30 tv timeouts. The season is now longer so more games played in less pleasant weather. Hasn't been THAT long ago that Arkansas State would start the season on the third Saturday in September now its Labor Day weekend and more often than not any home game week one or two is played in sweltering weather. AState used to wrap up the Saturday before Thanksgiving now it is the last Saturday in November (and only because league added the title game, December games were becoming norm) and more often than not that last home date is cold and windy but occasionally you catch a break. Working in going to a Thanksgiving game is a mess if you are married and traveling to two families for the holiday.

Baseball viewership is down as well. Another sport demanding 3+ hours of the viewer's time and many breaks where nothing is happening.

I don't see football or baseball holding on to the fan interest they have because neither respects the fan's time.

A few points:

1. The games weren't originally invented or played for the fans. The were a pass time before the advent of Television and Radio. Radio and Television adapted both in different ways.

2. The greatest obstacle to Baseball, Football, and Hockey are primary experiences, and I don't mean attending a game. I mean playing the game. If kids don't play the games the will have little interest in them. The reason Boomers were such avid sports fans is because we played Basketball, Football, and Baseball throughout our grade school years and those who were good enough played collegiately.

Having had to think through the games you get a much greater understanding of the intricacies that make them interesting to watch. That said there is only so much experience. I played in addition to those three, tennis and golf competitively and as much as I enjoyed them I have no great interest in watching either on TV. I think that's because they are solo sports. Team sports are much more intricate and therefore more interesting and more social.

3. Nothing is going to make up for the lack of team play that is happening in a world fascinated with solo devices and video games. The objective to playing team sports is to learn how to coordinate actions with others to obtain an objective. It requires serious thought, a lot of practice, and social interaction.

I see much of the problem with sports popularity today as the competition they have with escapism. Most of the young people today slip away into these devices the way we once slipped away into books. The difference is when offered a social opportunity folks from my generation would place a bookmark in head out with the group. These kids escape from social interaction where they frequently feel awkward into devices whether to game, anonymously say what they think or feel, or to read.

I think our society has become far more confining for young people. Most will not, or cannot hold jobs in their youth because of age policies, or lack of opportunities. Therefore while they may have mom or dad's credit card they still are not financially as independent as that generation that slipped $5 into their pocket every time they mowed a big yard and could slip off with their buddies grab a burger and play ball at the armory all day.

Kids today can't get away from parents, and the fear of strangers and being out in public has contributed to the isolation that many of them experience.

Every male in my high school class was independently living away from their parents by age 19. That's now the anomaly instead of he norm. The need to escape their reality and the inexperience with team (social) sports has been a major factor in the decline of interest in watching them and I think this is going to impact all sports viewing and in the not too distant future. 2036 will be a pivotal year. Beyond that point Boomer's will no longer be a statistical factor.

4. I also think that since contracts look forward, the contracts being renewed in the next 3 years will be the last that pay such a high a premium for team sports. I think that gaming will become the niche that replaces them as advertisers offer the public the games that the kids have been buying and will provide them free but with advertisements appearing in the games as background scenery. We'll see.

5. Because of all of this and the trend toward escapist devices, and coupled with a strained economy, I wouldn't be surprised at all if by 2050 there are only a few schools nationally that have scholarship team sports.

I played club lacrosse at App and got my first teaching job out of college because I said I was willing to coach the lacrosse team when it was due to become an official NCHSAA sport in a year or two. (I moved to VA at the end of the school year and never ended up coaching in NC or anywhere for that matter).

I love the game and like to see it grow. Where I live, it seems to be up there with soccer in terms of youth participation. My daughters play field hockey (another great game traditionally played in NE prep schools - i tried getting the girls into lacrosse but my wife who played FH growing up was more persuasive with them). Whenever we go to FH tournaments at big sports complexes around the state, there always seems to be lacrosse tournaments occurring at the same place and the numbers are huge.

I think it's like soccer in the sense that it may become more popular from a spectator side as the people playing grow up, but it is decades behind soccer in that development. It may someday pass baseball (as the OP asks) but I don't expect to be alive to see it - maybe in like 75 years (if people still play and watch team sports then).

Another thing about the grow of the sport. When I played club lacrosse at App from 95 to 98, most of the guys had not played in high school. But the guys that had were all from Florida and all seemed to be from the first ever teams started at the school. I remember we went to a tournament once and played Loyola's lowest club team -apparently they had like 10 different club teams - and we got smoked something like 35-0. It was goal after goal after goal for those Marylanders. And they were doing that to all the NC schools at the tournament.

I recently saw online that the SE schools' club teams don't get creamed like that by NE clubs anymore.

(07-23-2019 09:39 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  3+ hours is more time than many want to invest in watching especially since that 3+ hours is bogged down with a twenty minute halftime, two more quarter breaks and a handful of 2:30 tv timeouts. The season is now longer so more games played in less pleasant weather. Hasn't been THAT long ago that Arkansas State would start the season on the third Saturday in September now its Labor Day weekend and more often than not any home game week one or two is played in sweltering weather. AState used to wrap up the Saturday before Thanksgiving now it is the last Saturday in November (and only because league added the title game, December games were becoming norm) and more often than not that last home date is cold and windy but occasionally you catch a break. Working in going to a Thanksgiving game is a mess if you are married and traveling to two families for the holiday.

The season is longer because the TV networks want more games to show on their channels.

TV ratings for football -- college and pro -- remain very strong. There was a dip in the NFL ratings when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling, but those numbers rebounded when the league addressed this issue.

Time to play a game has been an issue, and attempts have been made to streamline things ... but overall, football kicks every other sports @$$ regarding popularity in this country.

(07-23-2019 10:10 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-23-2019 09:39 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  The most popular sports in the country changes over time. When my Dad was born, baseball, horse racing and boxing were arguably the three most popular sports in the US.

I think concussions are overblown as an issue in viewership despite the effort to make fans care it just isn't that big of a deal.

The problem football has is much simpler. The younger part of the audience doesn't have the disposable income to spend to go to many games. Part of the younger audience got priced out when they were kids and either their parents didn't go, or if they did they left the kids with someone because they couldn't afford a third or fourth ticket.

3+ hours is more time than many want to invest in watching especially since that 3+ hours is bogged down with a twenty minute halftime, two more quarter breaks and a handful of 2:30 tv timeouts. The season is now longer so more games played in less pleasant weather. Hasn't been THAT long ago that Arkansas State would start the season on the third Saturday in September now its Labor Day weekend and more often than not any home game week one or two is played in sweltering weather. AState used to wrap up the Saturday before Thanksgiving now it is the last Saturday in November (and only because league added the title game, December games were becoming norm) and more often than not that last home date is cold and windy but occasionally you catch a break. Working in going to a Thanksgiving game is a mess if you are married and traveling to two families for the holiday.

Baseball viewership is down as well. Another sport demanding 3+ hours of the viewer's time and many breaks where nothing is happening.

I don't see football or baseball holding on to the fan interest they have because neither respects the fan's time.

A few points:

1. The games weren't originally invented or played for the fans. The were a pass time before the advent of Television and Radio. Radio and Television adapted both in different ways.

2. The greatest obstacle to Baseball, Football, and Hockey are primary experiences, and I don't mean attending a game. I mean playing the game. If kids don't play the games the will have little interest in them. The reason Boomers were such avid sports fans is because we played Basketball, Football, and Baseball throughout our grade school years and those who were good enough played collegiately.

Having had to think through the games you get a much greater understanding of the intricacies that make them interesting to watch. That said there is only so much experience. I played in addition to those three, tennis and golf competitively and as much as I enjoyed them I have no great interest in watching either on TV. I think that's because they are solo sports. Team sports are much more intricate and therefore more interesting and more social.

3. Nothing is going to make up for the lack of team play that is happening in a world fascinated with solo devices and video games. The objective to playing team sports is to learn how to coordinate actions with others to obtain an objective. It requires serious thought, a lot of practice, and social interaction.

I see much of the problem with sports popularity today as the competition they have with escapism. Most of the young people today slip away into these devices the way we once slipped away into books. The difference is when offered a social opportunity folks from my generation would place a bookmark in head out with the group. These kids escape from social interaction where they frequently feel awkward into devices whether to game, anonymously say what they think or feel, or to read.

I think our society has become far more confining for young people. Most will not, or cannot hold jobs in their youth because of age policies, or lack of opportunities. Therefore while they may have mom or dad's credit card they still are not financially as independent as that generation that slipped $5 into their pocket every time they mowed a big yard and could slip off with their buddies grab a burger and play ball at the armory all day.

Kids today can't get away from parents, and the fear of strangers and being out in public has contributed to the isolation that many of them experience.

Every male in my high school class was independently living away from their parents by age 19. That's now the anomaly instead of he norm. The need to escape their reality and the inexperience with team (social) sports has been a major factor in the decline of interest in watching them and I think this is going to impact all sports viewing and in the not too distant future. 2036 will be a pivotal year. Beyond that point Boomer's will no longer be a statistical factor.

4. I also think that since contracts look forward, the contracts being renewed in the next 3 years will be the last that pay such a high a premium for team sports. I think that gaming will become the niche that replaces them as advertisers offer the public the games that the kids have been buying and will provide them free but with advertisements appearing in the games as background scenery. We'll see.

5. Because of all of this and the trend toward escapist devices, and coupled with a strained economy, I wouldn't be surprised at all if by 2050 there are only a few schools nationally that have scholarship team sports.

Actually many of the most popular games are team efforts and require coordination of multiple team members. They just aren't in the same room.

Yes, there's growing enthusiasm, but outside of prep schools in the Mid-Atlantic the level of play is so low that it'll remain a regional sport for the foreseeable future. Eventually that enthusiasm will turn into actual quality development will turn into scholarships, and therefore turn into programs starting outside of Bos-Wash, but we're still very early on in the process. Hockey's several years ahead of lacrosse in that regard. You're starting to see high-level prospects come from the Sun Belt, something that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and to match Arizona State has a hockey program, with UNLV flirting with the idea of it for a while.

In all honesty it's just as likely that parents find out lacrosse isn't the CTE-proof sport they're looking for and start telling the next gen of kids to stay home and play Fortnite 2 rather than play a sport. Part of what I've heard from the kids that play club lacrosse in Nebraska is they liked the violent aspect of it. I can't imagine Mom would feel the same if she knew that's what it was like.

(07-23-2019 10:10 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-23-2019 09:39 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  The most popular sports in the country changes over time. When my Dad was born, baseball, horse racing and boxing were arguably the three most popular sports in the US.

I think concussions are overblown as an issue in viewership despite the effort to make fans care it just isn't that big of a deal.

The problem football has is much simpler. The younger part of the audience doesn't have the disposable income to spend to go to many games. Part of the younger audience got priced out when they were kids and either their parents didn't go, or if they did they left the kids with someone because they couldn't afford a third or fourth ticket.

3+ hours is more time than many want to invest in watching especially since that 3+ hours is bogged down with a twenty minute halftime, two more quarter breaks and a handful of 2:30 tv timeouts. The season is now longer so more games played in less pleasant weather. Hasn't been THAT long ago that Arkansas State would start the season on the third Saturday in September now its Labor Day weekend and more often than not any home game week one or two is played in sweltering weather. AState used to wrap up the Saturday before Thanksgiving now it is the last Saturday in November (and only because league added the title game, December games were becoming norm) and more often than not that last home date is cold and windy but occasionally you catch a break. Working in going to a Thanksgiving game is a mess if you are married and traveling to two families for the holiday.

Baseball viewership is down as well. Another sport demanding 3+ hours of the viewer's time and many breaks where nothing is happening.

I don't see football or baseball holding on to the fan interest they have because neither respects the fan's time.

A few points:

1. The games weren't originally invented or played for the fans. The were a pass time before the advent of Television and Radio. Radio and Television adapted both in different ways.

2. The greatest obstacle to Baseball, Football, and Hockey are primary experiences, and I don't mean attending a game. I mean playing the game. If kids don't play the games the will have little interest in them. The reason Boomers were such avid sports fans is because we played Basketball, Football, and Baseball throughout our grade school years and those who were good enough played collegiately.

Having had to think through the games you get a much greater understanding of the intricacies that make them interesting to watch. That said there is only so much experience. I played in addition to those three, tennis and golf competitively and as much as I enjoyed them I have no great interest in watching either on TV. I think that's because they are solo sports. Team sports are much more intricate and therefore more interesting and more social.

3. Nothing is going to make up for the lack of team play that is happening in a world fascinated with solo devices and video games. The objective to playing team sports is to learn how to coordinate actions with others to obtain an objective. It requires serious thought, a lot of practice, and social interaction.

I see much of the problem with sports popularity today as the competition they have with escapism. Most of the young people today slip away into these devices the way we once slipped away into books. The difference is when offered a social opportunity folks from my generation would place a bookmark in head out with the group. These kids escape from social interaction where they frequently feel awkward into devices whether to game, anonymously say what they think or feel, or to read.

I think our society has become far more confining for young people. Most will not, or cannot hold jobs in their youth because of age policies, or lack of opportunities. Therefore while they may have mom or dad's credit card they still are not financially as independent as that generation that slipped $5 into their pocket every time they mowed a big yard and could slip off with their buddies grab a burger and play ball at the armory all day.

Kids today can't get away from parents, and the fear of strangers and being out in public has contributed to the isolation that many of them experience.

Every male in my high school class was independently living away from their parents by age 19. That's now the anomaly instead of he norm. The need to escape their reality and the inexperience with team (social) sports has been a major factor in the decline of interest in watching them and I think this is going to impact all sports viewing and in the not too distant future. 2036 will be a pivotal year. Beyond that point Boomer's will no longer be a statistical factor.

4. I also think that since contracts look forward, the contracts being renewed in the next 3 years will be the last that pay such a high a premium for team sports. I think that gaming will become the niche that replaces them as advertisers offer the public the games that the kids have been buying and will provide them free but with advertisements appearing in the games as background scenery. We'll see.

5. Because of all of this and the trend toward escapist devices, and coupled with a strained economy, I wouldn't be surprised at all if by 2050 there are only a few schools nationally that have scholarship team sports.

Times change, things change. Always. Nothing is set or pre-ordained to last.

There were no organized college sports before 1869. There may be no organized college sports after 2069.

It may well be that this two hundred year college sports era was just a blip in time, a fad or footnote, destined not to last.

Later generations may scratch their heads and wonder why they existed in the first place. Who knows?

College athletics were a uniquely American thing.

Elsewhere in the more urbanized Europe, the new found "spare time" of industrial workers led to the creation of athletic clubs while the less compact and more rural US never saw those clubs develop into national competition and drawing national attention but college athletic clubs did.

(07-23-2019 12:02 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  College athletics were a uniquely American thing.

Elsewhere in the more urbanized Europe, the new found "spare time" of industrial workers led to the creation of athletic clubs while the less compact and more rural US never saw those clubs develop into national competition and drawing national attention but college athletic clubs did.

The organizing principle usually determines the structure. The schools had the young men all in one place with some time to play. Athletics were believed to be essential to the well rounding and health of the students. So you had a pool of the most likely participants, and an educational philosophy that believed that balance between intellect and the physical body were essential to the development of solid character. So what followed was natural.

I'm not so sure that just developing the mind is healthy. If you have a weak mind and a strong body you become a slave to the more intelligent. If you have a strong mind and a weak body you become a slave to the more powerful. It is only in the balance that you can obtain and maintain freedom.

(07-23-2019 10:10 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Every male in my high school class was independently living away from their parents by age 19. That's now the anomaly instead of he norm.

That's because it's basically impossible to do so.

I was living on my own at 21, but that was only because I was willing to live with 3 other people, nearly exclusively ate peanut butter sandwiches and easy mac, and was gifted a 15 year old car to get to work. I was also extremely fortunate that USC willing to pay for nearly my entire education and my parents were financially able to pick up the slack.

The financial obstacles to success are just so high now that young people just can't be expected to do what prior generations could do