Bellarmine v. Marquette (non rev warning)

[Dew]

I don't think lacrosse will be a revenue neutral sport at the D1 level. The scholarship money alone wouldn't be offset by ticket sales and that doesn't even include one cent for facilities, coaching, and travel.

[MUSeashells&Balloons]

[
I agree with you on Denver they are an enigma in Lacrosse out in Colorado. They have the Appeal of Zaga in Bball without the correlating $$ to make it work.

This quite a misconception their success in lacrosse is no mystery having grown up in Denver Lacrosse is probably the most popular after football at the high school level. At the professional level Denver has two teams the Colorado Mammoth and the Denver Outlaws(Owned by the Broncos) not only is Denver one of the few cities to be able to support two professional lacrosse teams. The Mammoth have the highest attendance in the league. Lacrosse has been popular in Colorado for a long time when a lot of East Coasters moved to Denver from the 60s on they brought lacrosse with them. Denver has the correlating money to make it work, Lacrosse is one of two revenue sports at DU the other Hockey. They sell out their Stadium frequently and play high profile games at Mile High Stadium(Broncos NFL stadium). Its no enigma about lacrosse in Colorado. And Denver definitely puts $$$$$$$$$ behind that team. No Disrespect to Gonzaga because I like them, but their not like Gonzaga its like adding a Duke, Kentucky, Indiana or Kansas in Basketball its an elite program not the leader of a mid-major.

[MUSeashells&Balloons]

I don't think lacrosse will be a revenue neutral sport at the D1 level. The scholarship money alone wouldn't be offset by ticket sales and that doesn't even include one cent for facilities, coaching, and travel.

The Scholarship money is quite small each team only gets 12.6 scholarships from the NCAA meaning almost no lacrosse player has a full ride some just get books payed for and most on the team don't even get scholarships so its not infeasible to sell enough tickets/TV revenue to cover scholarships. Other costs are quite variable so it depends on how the sport is managed.

[yorost]

Title IX more or less doubles that scholarship cost, assuming the women's balance is not generating revenue. I don't doubt successful programs can cover that, but at a place like Marquette just starting the sport, it must represent a sizable loss. That's into multiple hundreds of thousands per year in scholarship cost, and 1,500 would be great attendance, right? I think that's Marquette's capacity. At 10 home games it's amx of 15,000 tickets. You'll have to sell them at over $10, but right now students get them free. I'm not seeing the ease of ticket sales covering scholarship costs. If it was easy to pull a wash on lacrosse you would see most schools supporting it already.

[yorost]

True True... i will refrain from all SEC references outside of BE soccer (and the BE needs SLU to make that a reality , i won't give up the ghost)

You're way too trigger happy with this SEC thing. Even adding St. Louis wouldn't make it true, how many championships have you won since '73? I think we can safely shelve the SEC comparisons until we're winning championships more often than not (instead of none in the last 15+ years).

[BillEsq]

Its not easy but it is possible. Lacrosse is like soccer, a few thousand fans show up and it starts to break even. Any women's sport bringing in over 1,000 fans is a plus.

I know SLU makes some profit off soccer averaging 4-6g a game. I imagine Lacrosse would be similar. I can tell you that it is a decent spectator sport and expanding.

[ArmyVet]

I don't think lacrosse will be a revenue neutral sport at the D1 level. The scholarship money alone wouldn't be offset by ticket sales and that doesn't even include one cent for facilities, coaching, and travel.

The Scholarship money is quite small each team only gets 12.6 scholarships from the NCAA meaning almost no lacrosse player has a full ride some just get books payed for and most on the team don't even get scholarships so its not infeasible to sell enough tickets/TV revenue to cover scholarships. Other costs are quite variable so it depends on how the sport is managed.

That's 25 scholarships between the men and women. I'd say a safe estimate on education plus room and board at the ten BE schools is $40k/year so you are starting a million bucks in the hole before you hire a staff, paid for equipment, travel etc. I like LAX but have a hard time believing there are many schools that even come close to breaking even.

[MUSeashells&Balloons]

yorost:
well it couldn't have just been the first game but Marquette pulled in 1,600 at its first home game (about 120 looked to be students its far from campus). Marquette's capacity is 5,500. so based on your numbers it would be able to cover or come just shy of your number. Assuming we did have capacity attendance and a 1,000 of those are students thats $450,000 per season plus tv. That could make at least the mens team revenue. Will we I have no idea it would probably be 5-10 years out depending on team performance. If you moved the games to the campus fields you might be able to attract large enough crowds to where you would start charging students. Who knows if Marquette will be revenue in ten years but the extensive studies I'm sure the athletic department performed. Seem to indicate they think it will be profitable or attract enough additional sstudents to cover the cost. Who knows?

[BillEsq]

True True... i will refrain from all SEC references outside of BE soccer (and the BE needs SLU to make that a reality , i won't give up the ghost)

You're way too trigger happy with this SEC thing. Even adding St. Louis wouldn't make it true, how many championships have you won since '73? I think we can safely shelve the SEC comparisons until we're winning championships more often than not (instead of none in the last 15+ years).

I know i stitched from oatmeal to grits today thats probably the problem. And yes adding SLU would make it true. We have more titles than anyone else and make the tournament even in our rebuilding years and while its been a while since our last title its not like we have been crap since, usually a top 25 team. With SLU, Creighton, St Johns, Marquette, Providence you have 5 teams that almost always make the tourney and could almost always count on a final four plus. Add in GTown who was number 2 last year and X and potentially Dayton who go from time to time. Heck i think Nova's been ranked recently. No other conference would have as many teams in every year. Few would have as many National titles.

[BillEsq]

Back to the issue at hand the game starts in four minutes

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