Any rumors of any D1 schools starting mens lax? Would love to see another ACC team sponsor the sport but get that there are Title IX issues at play.

Nothing founded here, I would love for the Big 12 to find a way to get there.

(01-06-2022 08:02 PM)Bluedevil16 Wrote:  Any rumors of any D1 schools starting mens lax? Would love to see another ACC team sponsor the sport but get that there are Title IX issues at play.

It can't be as expensive as hockey to move from club to varsity status? Plus it's easier to fund women's lacrosse than hockey or crew.

(01-06-2022 08:02 PM)Bluedevil16 Wrote:  Any rumors of any D1 schools starting mens lax? Would love to see another ACC team sponsor the sport but get that there are Title IX issues at play.

Boston College is the obvious option.

(01-06-2022 09:49 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(01-06-2022 08:02 PM)Bluedevil16 Wrote:  Any rumors of any D1 schools starting mens lax? Would love to see another ACC team sponsor the sport but get that there are Title IX issues at play.

Boston College is the obvious option.

Florida State as well if you include a woman's team.

(01-06-2022 09:49 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(01-06-2022 08:02 PM)Bluedevil16 Wrote:  Any rumors of any D1 schools starting mens lax? Would love to see another ACC team sponsor the sport but get that there are Title IX issues at play.

Boston College is the obvious option.

it is still surprising to me that BC does not have varsity LAX and i've known that for years

I would not mind seeing more SEC schools start LAX. I want to say that Georgia has a men's team

Yep, I was right:

https://www.ugalax.com/

Pitt is starting their first season with Women's Lax. If if it goes well I could see Pitt moving their current Club Lax team up. The big impediment would be Title IX.

Im surprised that the ACC doesn't have more teams playing lax. BC, Pitt, Miami, Wake Forest, NC St. just seem like they should have a lax team.

Lax is the fastest growing sport and will only grow in popularity since more kids are playing lax and not playing football.

The ACC should have added Johns Hopkins as an associate lax member.

What schools are able to treat men's lacrosse as a revenue sport? I'm guessing there's a big gap between big schools like JHU, Syracuse, etc. and the smaller schools and programs located outside the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast (except Denver?).

I’d like to see more MAC lacrosse

(01-06-2022 09:05 PM)bhutchcraft89 Wrote:  Nothing founded here, I would love for the Big 12 to find a way to get there.

Interestingly enough, my alma mater, the University of Montevallo, plays men's lacrosse!!

https://montevallofalcons.com/sports/mens-lacrosse

For some weird reason, Montevallo plays men's lacrosse in the PeachBelt Conference and women's lacrosse in the GLVC. That is a complete mystery to me, IMO.

(02-07-2022 03:23 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(01-06-2022 09:05 PM)bhutchcraft89 Wrote:  Nothing founded here, I would love for the Big 12 to find a way to get there.

Interestingly enough, my alma mater, the University of Montevallo, plays men's lacrosse!!

https://montevallofalcons.com/sports/mens-lacrosse

For some weird reason, Montevallo plays men's lacrosse in the PeachBelt Conference and women's lacrosse in the GLVC. That is a complete mystery to me, IMO.

Montevallo women actually play in the Gulf South. There are 3m/4w GSC teams and 3m/3w PBC teams. That's not enough for a full conference schedule. An unofficial partnership developed with the GSC hosting all the women's teams and the PBC hosting all the men's teams. The teams would be independents otherwise as all the other teams in the region are in the SAC, the CC, and the SSC.

(02-07-2022 01:19 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  What schools are able to treat men's lacrosse as a revenue sport? I'm guessing there's a big gap between big schools like JHU, Syracuse, etc. and the smaller schools and programs located outside the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast (except Denver?).

I think it would be difficult to characterize even the biggest lacrosse schools like JHU and Syracuse as being true revenue sports in the traditional metrics of bringing in more athletic revenue (e.g. ticket sales, TV revenue, etc.) than paying out expenses. Syracuse has traditionally had the highest attendance of any lacrosse program by a large margin and its total attendance for the year amounts to the equivalent of a little less than 2 basketball games. (Granted, that's still quite an achievement.) Everyone else other than maybe Maryland is way behind Syracuse on that metric.

Now, Division I men's lacrosse has relatively few scholarships (12.6 maximum) while carrying fairly large rosters (average of 48), so there are a lot of tuition-paying players on even fully-funded lacrosse teams (the equivalent of 35 or more non-scholarship players on the average team). So, holistically, one could argue that a lacrosse program might be bringing in tuition revenue that's substantial even though it's not counting as athletic revenue.

Granted, schools like Johns Hopkins, Duke, Syracuse, Michigan and Notre Dame are going to be able to fill their classes with tuition-paying students regardless of the existence of a lacrosse team, so that has to be taken into account, as well.

(01-08-2022 05:07 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I would not mind seeing more SEC schools start LAX. I want to say that Georgia has a men's team

Yep, I was right:

https://www.ugalax.com/

Yes but their team is not D-1.

Why does Jacksonville U. play Men's Lacrosse in the SoCon instead of the A-Sun (their primary conference)?

I’m really surprised that there aren’t more ACC and Big Ten schools fielding men’s lacrosse, the ACC especially. BC, Pitt, GT, and Miami all give off lacrosse school vibes. I guess it all comes down to money and title friggin IX.

(02-07-2022 05:49 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Why does Jacksonville U. play Men's Lacrosse in the SoCon instead of the A-Sun (their primary conference)?

The only other ASUN school sponsoring Men's Lax is Bellarmine, and it is still in the reclassifying to DI.

It appears that there is cooperation to get all teams in a conference so they have a chance to make the NCAAT.

ASUN sponsorship is new this year and the league will consist of Bellarmine, Utah, AFA, Robert Morris, Cleveland State, and Detroit Mercy.

Robert Morris, Utah, and Cleveland State were independent last season, and I suspect fairly new programs. Detroit Mercy is moving from affiliating in the MAAC. Bellarmine and AFA are moving from the SoCon. As you can see it is a scattering of schools from the West from a Lax perspective.

They could have formed a single-sport conference, but maybe it was easier to put it under an existing commissioners office. Whoever handles administration of Women's Lax for the ASUN could handle Men's Lax, with some intern maintaining the web page.

The SoCon last season (and this season) had High Point, Jacksonville, Richmond, and VMI. Bellarmine and AFA are leaving, Mercer is returning after a year off, and Hampton is a fairly new program. Only Mercer and VMI are actually SoCon members. The rest are affiliates.

So you have 12 programs with a geographical split.

All three schools moving to the CAA sponsor Lax, so it could possibly drop Richmond and UMass as affiliates, which would team up with St.Bonaventure and St.Josephs to form a 4-team core of an A10 conference.

(01-09-2022 09:20 PM)Arch Stanton Wrote:  The ACC should have added Johns Hopkins as an associate lax member.

I think JHU wanted to go there from what was floating around from that time with their public search. I think their official statement even referenced they had reached out to the ACC but didn’t get a response. Informally, from what I remember reading in different places, ACC was a favored location. I knew keeping some of the rivalries going was a factor, and that put the ACC and the Big Ten/Maryland in a good spot. The ESPN synergies were nice, too.

FWIW, I think this is one of the most understated blunders of the ACC over the last round of expansion. You heard chatter about the conference (ACC) being so strong that it didn’t need another member for AQ, and didn’t need a tournament. Yet, new ESPN deal, and surprise-surprise…they create a tournament for tv and applied for the AQ waiver. Yeah, still true that the ACC may own the sport, but the Big Ten got awfully good very quick under its new banner, and the Hopkins addition was a huge boost. And I don’t believe, based on what still floats out there, that Hopkins is where it really wanted to be. That they don’t love the Big Ten affiliation.

Good final 4 today. Think it’s still a sport that makes more sense for schools to add given the growth of the sport. Once the SEC adds the sport i feel like they’ll takeover.