Article on Lacrosse, Title IX, and football from a different perspective.
This is by an LSU lax blogger, who does an analysis of schools (including Michigan) with and without varsity lax, and with and without bigtime football, and concludes that it is really not about Title IX at all.
http://mclafan.com/news/cajun%E2%80%99s-corner-%E2%80%93-why-are-they-c…
Don't have time to read the whole thing in-depth and respond, but I think he's making a few assertions that aren't necessarily true, and using a bit of unsound logic in the bit that I read. I'll give it a closer look later and see what I think.
I read the whole thing, but I have to confess I skimmed over the budget tables. While discounting the role of Title IX is problematic, his guess that a prime determinant is whether athletic departments give a damn about lax is probably pretty close to the truth.
I can't say that I agree with the conclusion that it's not about Title IX. If Title IX didn't exist, the profits run by the big-time schools would allow them to start a lacrosse team without blinking. With men's lacrosse, you can earn back some of your investment. The article assumes lax costs about $3 million a season, and that's really a big-time investment - for the Mount St. Mary's of the world, it's less than that. But I'd conservatively estimate UVA gets at least half a million back from ticket sales and related game revenue per season. Then there's donations. Women's lax, on the other hand, is a sunk cost that you're never getting anything back on except the legal go-ahead to offer more scholarships to men.
I do agree that it has everything to do with location. That map said it all. You'd never see Stony Brook or MSM offer lacrosse if they weren't smack in the middle of in the hotbeds. Even small schools just outside that blob either don't offer it or do extremely poorly. But for the big schools with name recognition, it'd be extremely doable absent Title IX, and furthermore it'd improve visibility for the sport and stimulate growth outside the hotbed.
That map is pretty enlightening, and it says that Michigan should be varsity - the mass of dots in SE Michigan is quite significant - more than I realized. With that many programs, there would be massive youth attendance at games - the same as what is driving attendance at all levels of lax in Denver.
I'm pissed he used that map because I was planning to use it in a future post.
NOW MY THUNDER IS STOLEN
Still use it. It's worth seeing twice, plus I'm interested to see what you have to say about it regarding M.
I have been scouring the internet for anything I can get my hands on since some comments I made regarding Title IX on a LAX thread were not well received. Some things I did find out:
Individual schools decide how to handle Title IX requirements, and there are three "prongs" under the law, of which they only need to follow one. The three are as follows:
1. Providing athletic opportunities that are proportionate to the student enrollment
or
2. Demonstrate a continual expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex (usually female)
or
3. Full and effective accommodation of the interest of the underrepresented sex.
A case can be made for Title IX being at least partially responsible for the "demise" of some male sports or the lack of interest in making those sports scholarship sports. But I believe a stronger case can be made that each university makes its decision based on revenue, and I think the article's point about LAX needing to grow before it becomes a scholarship sport at Michigan (or at other large football schools) is valid. I believe U of M could find any number of ways to abide by one of these three prongs. Title IX isn't the only reason LAX is a club sport.
The article is right in one respect: the creation of Title IX was not about athletics; it was about gender discrimination in school. Any opportunity afforded to a boy has also to be afforded to a girl. It's pretty hard to refute that. As a friend of mine put it, if college is about getting an education, then scholarships shouldn't be based on a sport's income. They should be about opportunities for athletes to go to school, and that has to be equal for girls.
I refute it. If you believe, as many do, that the chance to play sports should be equal in college for men and women, then you cannot argue with Title 9. That is a legitimate opinion that I respect. But if you believe as I do, that there is no inherent "right" to play any sport at any school for any individual, and that playing sports in college is merely a nice thing to have available, then the idea that schools should have to create opportunities for one group, while denying them to others, is wrong. Simple question: why is it inherently wrong if sports participation at a given school is 70% male, so what? The whole idea that it should be 50/50 is completely artificial, and that a 50% equality is good, is inherently flawed.
Feel free to neg for both the opinion and injecting politics.
There's too much negging on this board for no reason as it is. "It's pretty hard to refute that" was referring to the idea that in school, whatever is available to men should be available to women. I was not referring specifically to athletics, but to opportunities in general. I don't think anything is ever completely equal and fair (50/50), but to strive for general fairness, to be mindful of general fairness and equality is important. In the case of college sports, IMO that means that anyone who wants and has the ability and skill to play sports should be able to.
I have a hard time with the notion that a girl's interest in sports is of less importance than a boy's. I have both a son and a daughter, and I've seen lousy boy athletes and great girl athletes. Just last Saturday, I saw a second grade girl switch hitting, and adopting Bree Evans' batting stance. And I've seen boys who will never be able to throw a baseball. So why should the girl, who is athletically ambitious, have to take a back seat to the boys just because she's a girl?
I really believe Title IX has to address the "interest" part of the equation. If there's a school where female interest is low, then it should be ok for scholarships to weigh heavy on the male side. But I think if women seek the opportunity to play competitively, their interest should carry as much importance as men's.
I agree with you that sports aren't a right. And I don't think it's wrong if participation is 70% male as long as the female interest is being fairly addressed. That's really what Title IX is saying.
"It's pretty hard to refute that" was referring to the idea that in school, whatever is available to men should be available to women.
The problem is that Title IX makes this emphatically not the case - for men. In just about every sport where there's a male and female equivalent, there are significantly more schools that sponsor the sport for women only and significantly more opportunities for women. This is true for soccer, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, track....etc. I think the only exceptions are baseball, basketball, and hockey, and these are revenue or quasi-revenue sports so there's incentive to host a men's version.
You could say that this is balanced out by football, where over a hundred athletes play on a team, but the fact is football is only ever sponsored by schools that make money from it. Football is either the first thing to go at smaller schools that need to save money, or it provides the revenue that gives women any opportunities in the first place.
It's for that reason that Title IX needs to be revised to exempt any sports that consistently bring in more money than they lose. Because the three-pronged approach to Title IX is totally ineffective. #3 is so nebulous and nonspecific as to be completely useless. #2 can only be used if you aren't already in compliance with #1. By now every school complies with #1, so they can't apply the other prongs. There's a limit to how far you can "expand opportunities."
Take away Title IX and what is stopping Michigan from sponsoring varsity men's lacrosse?
"but the fact is football is only ever sponsored by schools that make money from it."
This is completely and totally false. I would guess there are 700 or so schools that play college football at all levels. I would guess that somewhere around 50 actually net a profit from their football team.
Secondly, if these men want more opportunity, then go to the source that's taking up all the scholarships: football. Football has dropped from 105 to 95 to 85 over the past 30 years or so and I still think they could give away another 20+ and still be fine. There's your lax team (or wrestling or whatever else a school deems important athletically)
Getting back to Wendy's original comment. The crux of the argument is whether one thinks the value in having women's athletics was worth the cost of cutting various men's non-revenue programs over the past 30+ years. To me the answer is unequivocably yes.
Football could not give up 20+ scholarships and be fine. That would be 65, enough for a 2 deep on each side of the ball, the kids redshirting, a couple specialists, and not much more. If that happened, no team would be able to develop talent before throwing them on the field, they couldn't platoon at all, and injuries would have an incredible impact on a team.
Coaches said the same thing when they dropped from 105 to 95 in 1978 and 95 to 85 in 1994. Seems to me the game has done just fine.
A quality walk-on program would become more important. More starters would have to contribute on special teams. Scout teams in practice wouldn't involve many, if any, scholarship players.
Considering I-AA football makes it work with 63 scholarships, I find it hard to believe I-A football couldn't operate under those conditions and make it work.
And people pay so much attention to I-AA football because such quality football is played there.
You forget, in your other statement that football doesn't make money everywhere, that it's a halo sport that encourages millions of dollars in other donations. You show me a program that's using their other sports' revenue to fund football (and not the other way round) and I'll show you a program that's cutting football this year. The rate at which football programs are being lost far exceeds the rate at which they're being added.
Secondly, if these men want more opportunity, then go to the source that's taking up all the scholarships: football.
Oh, OK. I'll just grow to 270 pounds, shall I? Here's a thought: Football shouldn't be the reason to take away men's opportunities to play soccer or lacrosse any more than it should be a reason to take away women's opportunities to do the same.
The I-AA comment was pointing out that football can work with less scholarships. If D-IA schools were limited to 65 they could make that work too.
Yes, football does generate a lot of outside funding. That doesn't make it profitable, certainly not at most schools. Do you really think a school like Rice or Tulane makes money on football? Or have profitable athletic departments in general?
"The rate at which football programs are being lost far exceeds the rate at which they're being added." Again, completely false. D-III has added upwards of 10 programs the last 5-7 years and lost only 2 or 3. In the scholarship ranks, UTSA and Georgia State will start up this year as I-AA programs offsetting the drops by Hofstra and Northeastern. There was a high rate of program losses in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but the hemorraging has slowed.
The I-AA comment was pointing out that football can work with less scholarships. If D-IA schools were limited to 65 they could make that work too.
In D-III they have no scholarships. Do you think that model would "work" too?
There are brand new programs at ODU, Lamar, UTSA, South Alabama, and GSU, and those all sprouted up in the last year or two. Before that there have been no brand-new D-I programs at all in at least the past ten years - some moves upwards, but no new programs. You need to go further back. In the last decade, D-I has lost Hofstra, Northeastern, Canisius, Iona, Siena, Fairfield, La Salle, St. Mary's, and St. John's - don't misrepresent it by limiting it to just this year.
Fair and Equal where never the two shall meet.
Yeah, after looking at that map. UM should clearly move to varsity. Not only does SE MI have a ton of teams, but West Michigan has quite a few as well, including a few of the best teams in the state (EGR and the FH schools). I think M would still look to the East Coast for recruiting, but if we took the top 1-2 instate players every year, I bet they would be on par with the East Coasters who got passed up by UVA and Syracuse.
For Michigan, right now, I think the Title IX concerns are overblown. Michigan HAS the money to fund both sports. Last year, in a year in which we were still paying for the stadium renovation, we STILL have budgeted profit surplus of $2.57 million dollars. The school will be making more money next year off the new stadium. They're also upgrading the Basketball facilities, and they already upgraded the football weight room. The money for lacrosse is there - they just need to decided to use it to fund Men's and Women's lacrosse, and not other items.
In 2007, Florida spent $330,000 on their women's lacrosse team. So to say that Title IX is stopping Michigan from having lacrosse, you have to say that the $330K is stopping the sport - and the numbers don't support that.
Florida lax citation: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4943749
Mich budget: http://www.regents.umich.edu/meetings/06-08/2008-06-X-15.pdf
i have to agree with this. for the biggest of the bog revenue schools (UT, UM, UF, etc) they have the money to support an additional 2 teams. Each school has to prioritize on a school by school basis. hockey expansion has the same issues.
Agree re: Michigan's finances and adding sports. The two factors that likely inhibit the AD from just pulling the trigger are 1) Gotta finish paying for the three massive capital projects designed to increase revenue (directly - luxury boxes, or indirectly - Glick field house and the BBall facility) and 2) The crappy state of Michigan's economy. These factors do not mean that Michigan doesn't have the $$ to do it, but that it probably wouldn't look so great for the department to be looking like such free spenders by doing everything at once.
That was the operating budget, which probably doesn't include startup costs (the cost of hiring a coach, personnel, etc., and recruiting a ful roster) or scholarships.
That said, the reason Michigan doesn't have lacrosse is indeed not due to a lack of resources, but a lack of desire to allocate those resources toward lacrosse programs in the past. As title IX concerns go, maybe the school is willing to spend $1.5 million on new sports, but not $3 million (the estimated cost to start new programs).
At the end of the day, Bill Martin's Michigan athletic department, for better or for worse (and more often than not, much much better) had budget control and profit as its top priorities. From what we've seen so far, the Brandon Adiminstration might be a little more open to spending money in the name of winning, branding, and modernization. It remains to be seen.
As title IX concerns go, maybe the school is willing to spend $1.5 million on new sports, but not $3 million (the estimated cost to start new programs).
That's my point. At the end of the day, it's not title IX that's stopping it, it's their desire to not spend that money. I'm not sure if that Florida girls lax number was startup or not - it's apparently what they spent in their first year, obviously, that article is light on the detail.
But in the last three years, the AD has had an operating surplus of over $2 million AFTER spending over $10 mil in each year (often MUCH more than this) on facility upgrades. Now, I understand that the salary of coach Paul and his staff would need to be transferred from "donations" to the University ledger, but if my memory of the program from my day serves accurately, the U is already footing the cost of both Men's and Women's lacrosse's use of University facilities, trainers and medical staff, and uniforms - so I wonder if your $3 million number is the cost to create a program from whole cloth, or to elevate the program from Varsity Club - something most schools don't have.
They'd need to endow a total of 24.69 scholarships between the two sports - which, frankly, is far less than the number of scholarships the university pays for as a gift to the General Scholarship fund.
At the end of the day, I think the money is there. They just have to decide if they'd rather do that or spend the money elsewhere. The Title IX stuff is a charade to mask the AD's ambivalence in funding the sports.
but if my memory of the program from my day serves accurately, the U is already footing the cost of both Men's and Women's lacrosse's use of University facilities, trainers and medical staff, and uniforms
I think facilities are free for the teams ("donation" from the U), trainers and medical staff are employed by the team (i.e. part of the team's budget), and uniforms are provided by Adidas - actually a net positive for the University through the Adidas contract.
Keep in mind that while we ran an operating surplus for the yearly budget, we have a long-term debt of $150+ million because of the stadium renovations, and the basketball facility will likely add to that. It's important that we keep our annual budget highly profitable, to retire that debt as soon as possible. Right now, coming off two straight poor football seasons (which could make some ticketholders wary of renewing), it may not be the best time to thing about adding nonrevenue sports. We need to make sure first that the stadium will keep on selling out.
Something very major would have to happen to where the Big House was no longer selling out. Even with the crappy last 2 seasons, people still bought tickets. I don't think that's too much of a concern.
Realistically, if our football team sucks that bad for the next couple years, we'll get a new coach, there will be new hype around the program, and tickets will sell. We would need like 10 years of suck for people to stop coming to M games.
Nothing's guaranteed. Ticket prices have increased by a factor of several hundred percent over the past 15 years and aren't going down anytime soon. If we do not return to national prominence within the next couple of years, I expect the sellout streak to end. Not that the stadium will suddenly be half-empty, but I could see season-ticket sales sagging to like the 85-90,000 range as a lot of fans might decide to just scalp individual games instead. Hopefully RR will make this all academic.
The sellout streak ended against Toledo. The game was still over 100k though.
"That's my point. At the end of the day, it's not title IX that's stopping it, it's their desire to not spend that money."
No argument from me on that. I think anyone who cares to pay attention would agree with that, but that's my number one issue with the original article as well:
"According to a whole bunch of blogs, articles, and news outlets, Title IX is basically the only thing to blame for the lack of Division 1 lacrosse teams in the nation, among other sports (wrestling, men’s soccer, fencing)."
Where are the links? I've never seen a single person that I consider remotely knowledgable or credible make such an argument. Anyone who is interested in actually researching the issues, and isn't just a fair-weather fan or researcher knows that it's a complex issue, and Title IX is only part of that - depending on situations, it could be no factor at all, but for an athletic department with $1.5 million to spare in a given year (and I'm not saying Michigan is in this situation, just hypothetically), it could be a deal-breaker.
Valid point, I agree. I was merely shooting down the "Title IX" idea because it seemed like many here and seized it, despite it not being a huge issue in this case.
I don't see why it should be written off. Because of Title IX, the amount needed to be spent on varsity lacrosse more than doubles. I say "more than" because some money can be made back on men's lacrosse, while women's is almost entirely a sunk cost. No matter how you frame it, whether it's the repayment of debt for the stadium or a lack of profits, it always comes back to the money you need to spend, and Title IX will always multiply the cost of the program by a factor of two.
It doesn't "more than double". UVA, UNC, Duke, and Syracuse spend more than 3 times the amount of money on Men's Lacrosse than Women's (Syracuse spent $1.1 million on Men's lacrosse, and $375,000 on women's last year). Coaches are more expensive, as is equipment (girls wear goggles, mouth guards, and unis. men wear unis, mouthguards, helmets, gloves, shoulder pads, rib pads, elbow pads).
It is a factor, both financially and from a competitive standpoint, but anyone who thinks it's THE factor is fooling themselves.
The worst thing it can do is make the cost twice as expensive (not exactly chump change, to be sure), and have Michigan promote a women's program that could be really, really unsuccessful for a very long time.
If there had been any strong desire from the AD under Bill Martin to promote men's lacrosse, they would have been able to get through those two issues.
Good way to put it. It is a factor along with issues as momentous as whether to build new facilities for your football and basketball team or as mundane as what the budget line will be for the AD's development staff or snow removal. Just one more budgetary decision to be made on the basis of the priorities of the AD.
If there had been any strong desire from the AD under Bill Martin to promote men's lacrosse, they would have been able to get through those two issues.
In my mind, this is the end of it. If Lacrosse funding was higher on the priority list than any number of things, it would be there. The ambivalence towards the sport at the AD is why it's not varsity.
Within the world of lax fandom, there is huge denial of this reality. This denial has led to the idea that Title IX is the one and only villain in the room standing in the way of the great lax revolution. The idea that ADs desperately want to promote lax, but can't because of that damn Title IX thing is very attractive - the alternative is that ADs just don't care.