I must confess I am very impressed with what the Lacrosse program has been able to accomplish in such a short period of time. I have never followed collage lacrosse, so I have no context for what it means, but it seems very impressive for a start-up sport to get to a championship level in 4 years. I did not want to jam up the other thread with probably simplistic questions, so I thought I would start a new one.
For those more in the know, what is the long term outlook for Collage lacrosse as a sport? I know you hear it is the fastest growing sport, and with football on the decline, could it be revenue producing in the next ten years? I found some older data from a Bloomberg article, but just wondering what those who follow the sport are seeing/thinking.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-23/notre-dame-brings-lacrosse-s-lowest-revenue-into-ncaa-semifinals
Also, does the Midwest produce Lacrosse talent? I know you have the North-shore schools like Loyola Academy, New Trier and Lake Forest in the Chicago area and I assume Milwaukee has a few programs as well, is that enough to feed Marquette, ND and now that the big ten is fielding teams or does the majority of the talent need to come from the east coast in order to win?
I gotta give MU some props on the uniforms as well, looking at the other teams out there, they seem to all be clones off of a few longer standing programs. I think Marquette is representing the tradition of good uniforms well...I know the bumble bee is banned in hoops, but would it be possible for the Lacrosse team to sport those in the future?
I have enjoyed the few MU lacrosse games I've watched...but I'd be really surprised to see lacrosse generate real revenue anytime soon. The main hallmark of revenue-generating college sports (football, basketball, hockey) is that they ultimately feed big-money pro sports.
If any college sport begins to generate revenues over the net decade or two, I'd expect it to be soccer, not lacrosse. MLS is small relative to the NFL, NBA or NHL, but it is growing, and the sport is huge money-maker internationally.
Indianapolis has a huge lacrosse community. A few of the kids that go to my daughter's high school have even been contacted by Marquette, but I don't think anyone had a visit. There are a few growing hot beds outside the East Coast for lacrosse, but I'm not sure of the sustainability..
The mods get another one.