NCAA Announces Future Lacrosse Championship Sites

The NCAA announced future Tournament sites for all of their sports up to 2022. It included lacrosse and the quarterfinal and championship sites up to that year.

We already knew the sites for 2017 and 2018, but we found out about the following four years.

Thoughts

• The first thing that came in my mind was the NCAA made the right decision to return to Philadelphia. Unlike the ACC, the NCAA realized Philadelphia was the greatest lacrosse city of all time. It’s also where we saw the first total Division I attendance increase since Baltimore in 2010. Unfortunately, the NCAA decided to give other locations a chance too.
• I’m intrigued by the consistency to have Hofstra as a Quarterfinal site for the next six tournaments. It seats under 12,000 people, but from what I’ve heard from Long Islanders from playing there in high school, the atmosphere can be electric. I’ve heard similar reviews from other non-Long Islanders.
• As for the second quarterfinal sites, I’m mixed. I love Delaware (close to Philly) and Annapolis, as they both seat about 22,000 and 34,000 people respectively. We’ll skip Rentschler Stadium for the time being, but here’s where I’m not happy. Brown Stadium, which seats about 20,000, needs improvements. The field isn’t that good and neither is the pressbox. I know because Cuse played there last year. Then, we go to two big FBS football stadiums in Notre Dame Stadium and Ohio Stadium. They’re sick stadiums to play in but...

There’s a good amount of people there, but watching it on TV looks really bad. And from what I’ve also heard from friends of Cuse players, the atmosphere is like a women’s basketball game in the Carrier Dome (no offense to women’s basketball). It’s worth a try, but I think if you want to go back to college campuses for Championship Weekend and also downsize the venue, upping the Quarterfinal sites doesn’t work for me. I think each venue should slightly increase from the quarterfinal to the Final Four. Which is why basketball has gone away from football stadiums for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

• Let’s come back to Rentschler Stadium and East Hartford for a moment. Rentschler Stadium is about 30 minutes away from UConn’s campus (although Fairfield is the host) and can seat 40,000, which sounds like a really good size. It’ll get its first taste of lacrosse in the 2019 Quarterfinals. I think it could be a very good venue for future lacrosse championships, and the fact that it’ll be held on a campus that currently doesn’t sponsor men’s lacrosse (it does sponsor women’s lacrosse), it could show other schools (like the ACC schools that don’t have teams) the popularity of the sport.
• No love for Baltimore or New York/North Jersey besides Shuart, which is very odd. The Women’s Championships in 2019, 2020, and 2022 will be played at Johns Hopkins’ Homewood Field, while 2021 will be played at Towson’s Johnny Unitas Stadium. But I’m stunned a site like Maryland Stadium wasn’t considered, unless there was no bid made That stadium can hold about 52,000 spectators. Our own Ryan McDonnell was mentioning about Red Bull Arena being a possibility, which seats just over 25,000 people. I would love to see Championship Weekend, or even a Quarterfinal, held there.

Are you happy with the announcement? Angry? Any other feelings? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!