In the 1990s, the fastest growing sport had been soccer. To this day, people might tell you it is soccer. Almost every kid plays soccer, and Major League Soccer is a league that people like to follow and some teams make profit.
But this week, the Richmond Spiders added a lacrosse program. They already had a women’s team, so they had to get rid of another men’s program to add men’s lacrosse to the University.
So they dropped… Soccer.
This is the seventh NCAA Division One team to be added in the past five years in lacrosse. Michigan joined last year while Marquette is in this year and we will see more teams like Furman and Boston University.
What does this move show for the growth and popularity of lacrosse? Does it show lacrosse is catching up to, or even moving ahead of soccer?
Richmond could become a very good program in a few years. They are just an hour south of Virginia, one of the top teams in the country. They have an arena of 8,700 capacity that was built for football.
Is Richmond joining Division One a big thing for lacrosse? It might be.
