Look at the Major League Lacrosse schedule and you see a gap, a two-week gap between games. The reason is NCAA Championship Weekend.
This coming weekend in Baltimore isn’t just a celebration of college lacrosse, but also a celebration of the sport. Credit the MLL for realizing this. I’m sure several players want to attend the event, some to watch their alma maters battle for a National Championship. It’s not worth MLL playing games this weekend and competing against the marquee showcase of the sport.
Major League Lacrosse has done a great job of increasing its presence at Championship Weekend, featuring MLL player autograph sessions and opportunities to promote the league and what it has to offer.
This year, the MLL will take part in autograph sessions on Friday from 5-5:30 pm and 6-6:30 pm at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Then from 11:30 am-12:30 pm on Saturday, there’s a Q&A with MLL Players at the LaXperience Fan Fest. The schedule continues throughout the weekend. Click here to view the entire schedule.
College lacrosse and the professional leagues should work hand-in-hand. They’re not competing. In fact, I believe Major League Lacrosse should leverage college lacrosse even more. Take what it does annually at the NCAA Championship Weekend and do it year-round.
Still being a relatively new league, there isn’t as much of an affiliation in Boston with the Cannons as there is with the Red Sox. You need to grow that connection. It doesn’t happen overnight. An easy and obvious way to form a connection is through the allure and name recognition of schools, “brands” that already have credibility.
Every MLL team’s roster should include alma maters. As one example, the Boston Cannons feature former UMass All-Americans Will Manny and Jack Reid. If you click on their bio pages, their alma mater comes up, but in my opinion, it’s too hidden. It should be on the roster, to the right of height and weight. Boston also features former Brown standout goalie Jordan Burke who played down the road in Providence, Rhode Island. When trying to generate more fan interest, connecting yourself with the college game is a great starting point, especially in this case, players who played collegiately in the area. College lacrosse has such a passionate fan base and that already-established connection could pay dividends for Major League Lacrosse.
I’m not saying MLL teams don’t already capitalize on their players’ colleges. They do, but to a degree. I just think it could be better and more front-and-center.
Boston is only one example. As a fan, if I go to the roster page, the colleges don’t appear and only by taking the initiative to click on a player’s name would I see where he went to school. Especially in this day and age, fans need information hand-fed to them.
Every graphic in televised Major League Lacrosse games or on video boards should include the player’s alma mater. Duke Lacrosse or Syracuse Lacrosse is an established brand, so anytime you can say Duke, Syracuse, Maryland or any college program, it would only help the growth of the league just by adding that connection.
Another way to work even further together with college lacrosse would be to wait until the college season is over to start the Major League Lacrosse season. There is a gap between the end of the MLL regular season and playoffs. Why not start the MLL season the first week of June and run through mid-August with the playoffs being the weekend after? With the National Lacrosse League season still going on as well, some top-notch players miss more than a quarter of the outdoor season.
If the problem is getting enough games in, you could even have a few weekends include two games. It’s like the Major League Lacrosse Semifinals and Finals have been anyway, so if teams can play on consecutive days (Saturday and Sunday) in the playoffs, why not the regular season? I’m not saying every weekend should be two games, because lacrosse is a physically demanding sport, but if it’s a 10-week season, maybe two or three weekends feature games on back-to-back days. It’s been done before when the stakes were highest (the playoffs).
All this is easier said than done and I can’t speak to all the logistics. Rather than focusing on any specifics, my overall point is simple. College and professional lacrosse should work hand-and-hand. The MLL has done a good job, to a degree, but should continue to develop that connection.
At some point, the Cannons may have significant name recognition, but until that happens, pairing with established brand names that Duke, Syracuse, Maryland and others have become, can only help the league continue its growth.
