Post by PantherU on Mar 29, 2024 16:44:59 GMT -6
I was responding in the baseball thread when I realized I'm barely talking about baseball.
For one thing, the weather makes baseball's travel schedule expensive. They spend much of the first two months of the season on the road. For instance, the Panthers home opener was yesterday. Their season opener was February 16th. When they travel, they're staying somewhere 3-4 days.
Lacrosse, on the other hand, plays once a week, so you're probably only spending money on 1-2 nights in the hotel. The transportation cost should be a little more expensive for lacrosse because you have a larger staff and team (by about ~10 members). So that's something that may or may not be a wash.
Baseball plays out at Franklin Field, which is nice but creates its own logistical nightmares getting staff and players back and forth. There's nothing particularly "Panthers" out there either. It's closer for me at the moment, but my personal access to games is irrelevant. The alumni Joe's trying to court with ticket sales out there aren't really biting. Unfortunately the schedule doesn't really work well for me either, with afternoon games while I'm at work limiting me to Saturday afternoon games.
Lacrosse would be able to play their games at Engelmann Stadium. The NCAA lacrosse field dimensions are 110x60 yards, which is smaller than the NCAA soccer field dimensions (minimum 115x70 yards, maximum 120x75 yards). Because of the FieldTurf, we'd be able to just paint the new lines and be set. No long transport for student-athletes and staff.
Baseball has no hope of ever being a true revenue sport at Milwaukee. Lacrosse pays for itself at a number of Division I schools with similar weather to Milwaukee.
Baseball's atmosphere would be great if we could play on campus or at least nearby. We can't, so it's not. Students weren't going to Lincoln Park a couple miles away, they're not going to Franklin Field on the other side of town.
Lacrosse is like a spring semester football. It's an outdoor sport, you have the contact, the pads, exciting action. Now, my only experience with NCAA lacrosse is the top notch experience - #1 Virginia visiting #2 Johns Hopkins, Friday night, ESPN2, 50 degrees while I was visiting my sister in Baltimore on spring break - but there's nothing like the experience I had there. It was the closest thing to football I'd ever seen - marching band, sold out stadium, incredibly fun experience all-around.
When I originally pushed for lacrosse at UWM a couple weeks after that night, UWM didn't listen - but Marquette did. They had already been kicking around the idea of a team and they went for it.
Or we don't do anything. Who knows. Just an idea.
For one thing, the weather makes baseball's travel schedule expensive. They spend much of the first two months of the season on the road. For instance, the Panthers home opener was yesterday. Their season opener was February 16th. When they travel, they're staying somewhere 3-4 days.
Lacrosse, on the other hand, plays once a week, so you're probably only spending money on 1-2 nights in the hotel. The transportation cost should be a little more expensive for lacrosse because you have a larger staff and team (by about ~10 members). So that's something that may or may not be a wash.
Baseball plays out at Franklin Field, which is nice but creates its own logistical nightmares getting staff and players back and forth. There's nothing particularly "Panthers" out there either. It's closer for me at the moment, but my personal access to games is irrelevant. The alumni Joe's trying to court with ticket sales out there aren't really biting. Unfortunately the schedule doesn't really work well for me either, with afternoon games while I'm at work limiting me to Saturday afternoon games.
Lacrosse would be able to play their games at Engelmann Stadium. The NCAA lacrosse field dimensions are 110x60 yards, which is smaller than the NCAA soccer field dimensions (minimum 115x70 yards, maximum 120x75 yards). Because of the FieldTurf, we'd be able to just paint the new lines and be set. No long transport for student-athletes and staff.
Baseball has no hope of ever being a true revenue sport at Milwaukee. Lacrosse pays for itself at a number of Division I schools with similar weather to Milwaukee.
Baseball's atmosphere would be great if we could play on campus or at least nearby. We can't, so it's not. Students weren't going to Lincoln Park a couple miles away, they're not going to Franklin Field on the other side of town.
Lacrosse is like a spring semester football. It's an outdoor sport, you have the contact, the pads, exciting action. Now, my only experience with NCAA lacrosse is the top notch experience - #1 Virginia visiting #2 Johns Hopkins, Friday night, ESPN2, 50 degrees while I was visiting my sister in Baltimore on spring break - but there's nothing like the experience I had there. It was the closest thing to football I'd ever seen - marching band, sold out stadium, incredibly fun experience all-around.
When I originally pushed for lacrosse at UWM a couple weeks after that night, UWM didn't listen - but Marquette did. They had already been kicking around the idea of a team and they went for it.
Or we don't do anything. Who knows. Just an idea.