Lax: Undefeated Road Swing

...Dave Brandon and Mike Stevenson (Exec Assoc AD) had the following to say in this A2.com article:

Stevenson, who’s in his 40th year with the athletic department, said he envisions a smaller athletic department 10 years from now. Michigan currently sponsors 25 varsity sports, among the most in the NCAA.

“To sustain the economic model that we have, we’re probably going to have to be smaller, which doesn’t mean that we’d have to drop sports necessarily, but it may mean that you can’t afford to give the maximum NCAA scholarships in every sport,” Stephenson said. “I think that’s going to be the one thing that’s a huge issue all across the country.”

Brandon said there are no plans to eliminate any programs and he likes that the university offers so many sports.

“There are a number of universities that are cutting sports as a way to make their numbers work,” Brandon said. “Right now there isn’t any indication that that is necessary or a strategy that we need to embrace.”

As for his 10-year outlook, Brandon said only, “it’ll look a lot different than it does today.”

“I’ve never been one who’s been really big on 10-year planning because the world tends to change a little faster than that,” he said. “But I definitely am one of those guys that always kind of is looking out three to five years, trying to do the best I can of seeing what’s the road going to be like and trying to get there first."

I saw that article too. Stevenson is a dinosaur. He's older than me, and I'm pretty old (note the name). He'll be gone within the year.

Hopefully Brandon has some vision and fortitude to make some changes. Michigan has a lot of varsity sports. Some of them make sense to have now. Some are obvious Title IX adds (cough, cough, women's rowing, cough, women's water polo, cough). Some belonged 30 years ago but don't any more. How many men's gymnastics teams even exist any more? Are there 30? (I just looked it up. There are 14 NCAA division one teams. Ouch.)

I have become a relatively new lacrosse fan over the past two-three years as my nephews have gotten involved. I follow the Michigan team and tell everyone I know that doesn't follow them yet what they are missing. Despite the pretty high level of play amongst the top MCLA teams, they are quickly exhausting any reason to continue playing club lacrosse. What's the point if there's no competition?

I know the economy is bad, but Martin has done a wonderful job creating a huge surplus for the past several years, with more of the same predicted for the immediate future. Even if they didn't adjust the sports they currently have, couldn't they add lacrosse and the necessary Title IX matching teams within the current budget? I doubt it would take $10 million a year to do that.

Enough with the LAX injuries, is the cactus okay?

I don't have a problem with those sports at all. Just saying they were Title IX ads. Women's crew has been added all over the country as an easy Title IX fix because of the size of the typical crew roster. At least Michigan hasn't gone the route of some schools and made women's cheerleading varsity.

I also would hate to see a sport cut, and there is no doubt that men's gymnastics is successful. But how successful? There are only 14 D1 teams in the nation! Being top 10 every year loses a bit of its luster given that fact. The sport is in its death throes at the college level (for men, not women). At some point you have to take a hard look at why you are keeping it, which I'm sure Brandon will do. If he finds a way to keep it going, while also adding sports that are currently a better fit at Michigan and trending upward (http://www.uslacrosse.org/TopNav/NewsandMedia/PressReleases/LacrossePart...), more power to him.

I agree that men's rowing should be recognized more for their success. From what I read, they have an incredible program that is in many ways like the lacrosse program. What rowing lacks compared to lacrosse is the national growth at the high school and youth levels, a mainstream sport fanbase, and perhaps most importantly, NCAA sponsorship. Women's rowing is an NCAA sport. Men's rowing is not. That may be a tough sell. If rowing had a chance, I would have thought it would be under Martin because of his Olympic background. As a fan, I've come to appreciate lacrosse simply because it's a great sport to watch. I can't say I've ever been to a rowing event. I'll give it a try. My expectations for a thrilling spectator experience are not all that high.

Michigan has traditionally been committed to fully funding scholarships for every varsity sport offered by the athletic department. If they add more sports, they'll have to do so in a manner that distributes additional scholarships - and maybe overall roster spots, I'm not sure - evenly between men's and women's sports to satisfy Title IX obigations. The NCAA-sanctioned sports that Michigan does not currently offer are as follows:

Men:
Fencing (4.5 scholarships maximum)
Lacrosse (12.6)
Rifle (3.6)
Skiing (6.3)
Volleyball (4.5)
Water Polo (4.5)

Women:
Archery (5 scholarships maximum)
Badminton (6)
Bowling (5)
Equestrian (15)
Fencing (5)
Ice Hockey (18)
Lacrosse (12)
Rugby (12)
Skiing (7)
Squash (12)
Synchronized Swimming (5)
Handball (10)

The NCAA apparently doesn't sanction men's rowing? I have no idea, but if that's the case, there's no serious advantage to having them as a varsity team as opposed to club, and they probably aren't at the top of the priority list for Michigan.

That's just speculation on my part, of course.

What about the attendance and revenue from just making lacrosse a varsity sport. The Michigan lacrosse website says that Oosterbaan holds 800 currently, the new Al Glick field house holds 2,000 (but no hard ball sports allowed yet), and the proposed outdoor facility would seat 3,000. I know that i have seen at least 500+ in there for some games (for those that have been to a game know how cramped it is with a game going on and know why 800 would be hard to believe) and i would imagine that jumping to varsity standing would only increase attendance greatly and thus improve the lacrosse revenue and athletics revenue in general.

Looking at schools such as North Carolina, Duke and that school in Ohio, they only charge $5 per ticket; i believe that this is what Michigan charges as well. Back to my point if Michigan was to expand to varsity and it boosts attendance to 1000 then that would change ticket sales from $2500 to $5000. Then to span this over seven games a season that is $35000 in revenue. This made me question that maybe the potential reason from setting a timetable to jumping to varsity is the facilities.

As i said before Al Glick is a no hard ball facility. This made me think that maybe the University is waiting until the outdoor and indoor lacrosse facilities can be funded and thus avoid having to pay for the renovation of a brand new facility, that should have been made a hard ball facility in the planning. This could make sense because then baseball, softball, and women's lacrosse would all way a facility to use in the winter as well.