Seems to be a lot of buzz about Boston College cutting programs (baseball) to add Lacrosse. Any thoughts on how likely it is that baseball might be cut to add Lax?
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it would surprise me
Some east coast teams have lacrosse programs that draw big crowds and is a money-making sport for the athletic program.
I was at UVA one weekend for a big ACC series. There was baseball, lacrosse, and track & field all going on at the same time. The crowd for the lacrosse game TOTALLY DWARFED the baseball crowd. Heck, the track & field crowd was about the same as the baseball crowd.
Originally Posted by Southpaw7:
Some east coast teams have lacrosse programs that draw big crowds and is a money-making sport for the athletic program.
I have on many occasions seen up to 10,000 people at lacrosse games - both D1 and D3 - in the northeast where they were charging admission. I have never seen more than 1000 for a D1 baseball game in the northeast that was free.
Originally Posted by HVbaseballDAD:
I have on many occasions seen up to 10,000 people at lacrosse games - both D1 and D3 - in the northeast where they were charging admission. I have never seen more than 1000 for a D1 baseball game in the northeast that was free.
HV,
I agree with your observation about baseball attendance in the Northeast, but I'm skeptical about your estimates of lacrosse crowds--unless you're talking about national championship weekends, in which case it's not a fair comparison.
According to the NCAA web site, only five national quarterfinals games ever have drawn more than 11,533. Only a handful of first round NCAA lacrosse playoff games have drawn more than 5,000 fans.
According to the NCAA attendance records, if you saw 10,000+ fans at a D3 lacrosse game, you were definitely at a national championship game.
Although the top schools in lacrosse attendance (2012 leaders: Syracuse 4,447, UVA 3,842, Navy 3,378, Ohio State 3,364, Maryland 3,334) would fit comfortably among the top twenty baseball programs, you have to remember that a D1 lacrosse program has about 9 regular season home games, so each game is an individually anticipated event. Even at a hotbed-of-lacrosse school like UVA, baseball (average attendance 3,208) drew about three times the total home attendance of the lacrosse program.
I have no information about the situation at BC, but if such a decision is being contemplated, it's hard to imagine gate revenue being a factor.
I hope it isn't true. I hate to see baseball dropped anywhere.
But I can see why colleges want to add it.
But it goes well beyond gate revenue. To be very cynical, LAX is a high income sport, of course. It is played at elite boarding schools and top tier publics, well funded by families with means to be full pay parents and annual fund / major gift donors.
Just sayin.
By observation, the sport has really taken off in our Fairfield County conference (FCIAC) in the past decade.
FYI I do believe U of Richmond is dropping soccer to fund LAX. I am not sure of the current status of that.
Originally Posted by BaseballmomandCEP:
FYI I do believe U of Richmond is dropping soccer to fund LAX. I am not sure of the current status of that.
Correct. UofR dropped soccer AND track and field for lacross.
BC was supposed to build a new baseball facility as part of joining the ACC. Years later it has not been built due to NIMBY (no room on the campus). This may have some bearing on decisions. Their current field is used as a parking lot for football games.
