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Post by 123Rob on May 27, 2014 16:46:46 GMT -5
Hard to argue with the numbers but I disagree. I predict plenty of HS adding Boys Lax in the coming years. I predict some smaller HS combining for football in order to continue fielding a team. Lacrosse is still booming even here in WNY and if/when the urban HS start fielding teams then look out.
My town has a very large HS. Baseball carries 18 and only has to cut 3 or 4 kids per year. Lax carries twice that and cuts about the same number. Little League baseball numbers are down while youth lax continues to grow. Football has a long history of success in my town but is for all intents dead on the vine. They still have decent numbers but cut no one and the storied success is rapidly turning into a distant memory. Many of the better athletes stop football after 8th or 9th grade. Most of those kids are lax guys. Even those that stay on the team concentrate on lax and only worry about football from mid-August until Halloween.
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Post by 123Rob on May 27, 2014 16:56:23 GMT -5
Oops. Thought the first one did not post
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Post by sneakers on May 27, 2014 17:40:02 GMT -5
Lax is the fastest growing sport in America. It has made baseball almost irrelevant in towns with strong lacrosse programs. The high school in my town can barely field a baseball team and the quality all across the state in baseball is way down. Lax on the other hand attracts almost all the good athletes and many of them play that sport all year. Right now Lax is huge in the Northeast, but it is growing quickly in other areas of the country as well.
One thing to consider is that the A-10 does not offer men's lacrosse as a sport. They offer women's lacrosse, but not men's. Schools that are members of the A-10 that field men's lacrosse teames (like UMass) need to join another league for MLax. Also, SBU could not drop a sport to add MLax as we already offer the minimum number of sports required to compete in the A-10.
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Post by 123Rob on May 27, 2014 22:20:35 GMT -5
Just got back from the Section V Lax Finals. The stands were pretty much full for the class C championship with PalMac and Penn Yan. The stands were packed for the class A game between Pittsford and Fairport.
I witnessed the sectional finals for soccer, basketball and lax this year. The crowd and atmosphere tonight was as good or better than the other two. One thing I saw tonight was a ton of young (like late grade school or middle schoolers) lax players there to watch-- way more than the soccer final had.
Bona's needs to find a way to add men's lacrosse as soon as possible. There are 60something D1 men's lax programs. We need to get on board before the train pulls out of the station. The ACC is entrenched but not all the schools play. The Big 10 is booming. When the SEC and Big 12 start we may have missed the chance.
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 6:44:00 GMT -5
My pleasure, 123Rob. FYI: There were 80 college MLax programs in the State of New York last year and there were 328 high school programs. 4-1 ratio: New York is saturated! (There are 35 college football teams and 572 high school football teams in New York for a 16-1 ratio. I don't advocate the addition of football but a non-scholarship Pioneer League team to compete against Dayton, Davidson, and Duquesne makes more sense than MLax) I disagree with this notion. The expense of football and resulting injuries especially concussions means that parents and children will look for safer alternatives. Football at the high school level is going to decline while lacrosse just continues to grow in popularity. Are you telling me that it will be more expensive to recruit lax players across the US and Canada than it is to recruit tennis players from Europe and South America? As I noted, I do not advocate for the addition of football. I was only saying that it is a more viable addition, if done as a Pioneer League program. Yes, there will be a market correction but that doesn't mean demand for athletic opportunities in football will drop to an unsustainable level. The nice thing about football is that there is a limited schedule. Football is the only sport where teams, athletes, and fans are not concerned about playoffs but rather just concerned with beating rivals. It shocks a lot of people when they hear that the Ivy League and SWAC turn down their invitations to the NCAA championships. In order to meet the minimum number of sponsored sports (and A10) SBU needs to spend some money. The question is weather it is worth it to spend substantially more than the minimum needed for Tennis. And yes, recruiting internationals for tennis is not expensive. Mainly because they don't shop around like high school kids in the states do. If they are made an offer by a school in the states, unless they are an elite player (which SBU isn't going to have a shot at landing), they will make a decision based on programs offered and location. I know of some golf and tennis coaches that don't have to recruit internationals because their school's international student office and foreign recruiting agencies do the work. The school wants some international students on campus and they use the sport as a marketing tool that attracts students. They are less concerned about their athletic performance, though they often get some high quality athletes. |
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 6:46:37 GMT -5
I was about to get into what would probably be a long reply on why I don't think the decision to add MLax would be wise, despite the rise in the sport, but I realized I have no clue what you proponents of adding the sport want it to achieve.
Do you just want the school to sponsor the sport so that it might attract a few additional students?
Do you just enjoy the sport and the school and want to be able to enjoy them together?
Do you want the school to offer an elite MLax program?
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Post by 123Rob on May 28, 2014 7:53:39 GMT -5
I do enjoy the sport. It is hard not to and I have always been a baseball basketball guy. And as I said in early posts, lacrosse is just such a natural fit for Bonaventure. It is hard to see how we have never had men's lax.
Do I think we can be an elite power like Duke or SU? Probably not. But with the (for now) limited number of D1 programs, the ceiling is very high.
The main reasons that I would like to see Bona's add lax are 1.) to attract students and 2.) to secure and grow the overall strength of the athletic department.
The number of young kids of both genders playing lax is huge, and growing in number and in geography. I see a large portion of the generation of 9 to 12 year old boys that are athletic but (excuse the political incorrectness) throw like girls. McGraw and Jennings must be spinning I their graves! While my generation grew up playing football basketball baseball. I see American kids growing up playing a much wider variety of sports with football declining, baseball plummeting and lax skyrocketing. When SBU is trying to appeal to kids in say the HS class of 2020, even those that do not play will expect and want to see a men's lax team. Bona's will never have football or big time hockey. If we are ever going to be more than a one sport school in terms of spectator sports then lax is really the only answer. I see it as necessary in order for basketball to be able to stay D1, for the University to attract and retain top notch athletic administrators, training staff etc. While the "Olympic" sports are great and I do not want us to drop them, they really do not have much of a draw. Athletics on the D1 level is an attraction for new students, an enhancement to campus and community, and a powerful PR/marketing tool for the University. To succeed I see Bona's needing to elevate men's and women's soccer, maintain and grow our basketball traditions, keep Sean McNamee in Olean forever, elevate women's lax and add men's lax.
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Post by kcSBU03 on May 28, 2014 8:14:16 GMT -5
I do enjoy the sport. It is hard not to and I have always been a baseball basketball guy. And as I said in early posts, lacrosse is just such a natural fit for Bonaventure. It is hard to see how we have never had men's lax. Do I think we can be an elite power like Duke or SU? Probably not. But with the (for now) limited number of D1 programs, the ceiling is very high. The main reasons that I would like to see Bona's add lax are 1.) to attract students and 2.) to secure and grow the overall strength of the athletic department. The number of young kids of both genders playing lax is huge, and growing in number and in geography. I see a large portion of the generation of 9 to 12 year old boys that are athletic but (excuse the political incorrectness) throw like girls. McGraw and Jennings must be spinning I their graves! While my generation grew up playing football basketball baseball. I see American kids growing up playing a much wider variety of sports with football declining, baseball plummeting and lax skyrocketing. When SBU is trying to appeal to kids in say the HS class of 2020, even those that do not play will expect and want to see a men's lax team. Bona's will never have football or big time hockey. If we are ever going to be more than a one sport school in terms of spectator sports then lax is really the only answer. I see it as necessary in order for basketball to be able to stay D1, for the University to attract and retain top notch athletic administrators, training staff etc. While the "Olympic" sports are great and I do not want us to drop them, they really do not have much of a draw. Athletics on the D1 level is an attraction for new students, an enhancement to campus and community, and a powerful PR/marketing tool for the University. To succeed I see Bona's needing to elevate men's and women's soccer, maintain and grow our basketball traditions, keep Sean McNamee in Olean forever, elevate women's lax and add men's lax. When I graduated high school in 1999, lax was not a very popular sport in the area. Some schools had teams but you never heard about them. Then the Knighthawks came to town and seemed to spawn Lax in Rochester. As another poster noted, the draw for the sectionals recently was very good and the local media cover them as much if not more than the other sports. It would be good for SBU to strike while the iron is hot because in 5-6 years, lax should be even more popular and could be a draw for students and student athletes. I think your post was spot on. Whether we can pull off the funding and get through the red tape are a completely other problem. |
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 8:21:59 GMT -5
Thank you for the clarification on your position, 123Rob.
I agree that it is a little surprising that the Brown Indians never had a team. However, I am not of the opinion that they should have a team now.
Would you be happy with the program rivaling Canisius, Hobart, Manhattan, and Wagner?
I do not see MLax turning into a large spectator sport for these programs. Canisius averaged just over 300 fans a game and they were second place in the MAAC. The real key to the brands is television. The same people the were telling me SBU needs to preserve their on campus basketball games are now trying to bring a sport to campus that has no participation locally. The local community will not attend and support the team so even if the whole campus shows up to the game you're only drawing 1,500 people. But as I said, the key is television. Hopkins is now an associate member of the Big Ten Conference and will have their games on the Big Ten Network. The Big Ten and ACC are going to increase their brands and it is not going to trickle down to the other schools because the addition of programs willing to make large financial investments will happen as the sport expands. The fan base for Lax will expand but they will follow the Denver, Syracuse, Maryland, Duke elite athletes into MLL rather than expanding to follow Hobart or SBU.
As I have stated, it would take a minimum of $1M for SBU to have a competitive MLax program and that would likely only get them to the middle of the pack. And even then the program would be further relegated as more Big-5 Conference schools launch the sport.
Making a commitment to MLax would only further hurt the other programs at SBU. All of the programs are in the lower half of the A10 regularly with the exception of the basketball programs and MSwim which is partly due to so few schools sponsoring it and even less giving any resources to the sport. The addition of the MLax would not boost the universities athletic department but further dilute it.
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 8:32:28 GMT -5
One key thing to note, which is the problem with baseball is that the college spring seasons start in February. Early season games for outdoor sports in snowy weather following a harsh winter are not too popular with fans. The high school championships come later in the year (after SBU is already out for the summer) when the weather is nice and people want to be outside to welcome in the nice weather. The complaint has already been that students don't go to RC games and those are comfortable climate controlled games, I don't see how February Lax games will be a draw. I was at Duke's first round game with Air Force and there weren't 1k fans there. This is the National Champion...
Interested in knowing how many of you Lax fans have attended regular season college Lax games? What have your experiences been with college Lax? Were any of you down in Baltimore this weekend? If so, we could have met up!
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Post by Bona84 on May 28, 2014 8:32:41 GMT -5
Men's Lax looks like a sport definitely worth exploring, particularly with the new facility being added.
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 8:51:09 GMT -5
As the sport expands, each instance is diminished. As I have stated, it would only get worse for SBU as the sport expands.
NCAA Championship Lax attendance by year
•2008: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 121,511 (Gillette Stadium)
•2009: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 102,601 (Gillette Stadium)
•2010: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 102,219 (M&T Bank Stadium)
•2011: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 98,786 (M&T Bank Stadium)
•2012: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 79,959 (Gillette Stadium)
•2013: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 79,179 (Lincoln Financial Field)
•2014: Total Championship Weekend Attendance -- 78,234 (M&T Bank Stadium)
Also, this year's championship game (25,587) was the worst attended in 12 years.
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Post by Bona84 on May 28, 2014 9:47:52 GMT -5
It's a growing sport, which is popular in Bona's recruiting areas. In my town, and across the Hudson Valley, Lacrosse is drawing the interest of plenty of kids who would otherwise be playing baseball, and it is exciting to watch. When I was in high school in the Albany area, we did not have a lacrosse program, and now they have recently won a state championship.
While not without it's challenges, the sport has the potential to spice things up a little in our athletics program, and add some students that otherwise might not choose to study in the Enchanted Mountains.
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Post by Pinnum on May 28, 2014 11:52:38 GMT -5
What do you mean by 'the sport has the potential to spice things up a little in our athletics program'?
Since you compare Lax to baseball, there are currently 112 college baseball teams in New York and 723 high school boys baseball teams for a 6-1 ratio. Lax is already much more saturated, as I stated previously, with a 4-1 ratio. There would have to be 152 more high schools that add boys Lax in order for the ratio to be there same, however, since there is a lot of hype about adding college Lax, there will be more teams added further diluting the benefits. It is interesting to note that in the last six years there have only been 27 high school teams added in New York. The growth is in youth lax programs resembles that previously experienced by youth soccer. In the case of soccer, the huge boom in youth participation didn't lead to even more high school programs (there were already a lot of them) or athletes but rather more skilled high school athletes.
If you want to standout in a community (sport) you need to be a perennial power, have a large spectator base that gives great home attendance, or have a very high ratio so there are a lot of athletes that want the opportunity and will consider your school simply because it is one of a few options for the program. As in the last of the examples, a program like Rifle would make a lot of sense for a rural school like SBU to attract people to the Enchanted Mountains.
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Post by 123Rob on May 28, 2014 12:12:54 GMT -5
check, please!
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