What makes lacrosse popular

He also added that like all niche sports currently vying for popularity, lacrosse faces the unenviable task of trying to attract the attention of casual American sports fans. What lacrosse has going for it is that it combines elements of several established sports. Lacrosse players don helmets and padding similar to the equipment football players wear; like ice hockey players they check each other and use long sticks to propel the ball forward.

The sport appropriates certain terminologies and offensive sets that are common in basketball. Outdoor lacrosse, which is played on long open fields, has a similar aesthetic to soccer. In this sense, lacrosse has no single sport that it must compete with for attention.

It is unique but can attract fans by being somewhat similar to other sports they are already familiar with. And its fast pace is a good fit in a world where every life moves quicker by the year. George Kirsch, a professor of sports history at Manhattan College and author of Golf in America , says sometimes a sport can catch on if its characteristics mesh with larger societal trends.

For example, the golf boom that took place in America in the s was helped by increased suburbanization that was taking place in many parts of the country. Golf requires space, and new suburban developments allowed for the construction of private courses. At that same time cities began building municipal courses in public parks where the working class could play. And golf's popularity was also helped by the fact that it fit nicely with country's burgeoning business culture: Executives could easily discuss business affairs over a round of golf and thus the marriage between business and golf was born.

When asked why young athletes like lacrosse, O'Neill says it's the speed of the game. There's no doubt that culture today moves faster than ever via a constant stream of Tweets, status updates and text messages, so it may only be a matter of time before slower, more deliberate team sports such as baseball and football seem antiquated, and fans start gravitating towards sports like soccer, basketball and lacrosse where movement is constant. If that happens, lacrosse holds a slight advantage over the other two since it incorporates some of the physical contact prevalent in football and ice hockey.

Innovation in sports can be a slow process, and it often takes a significant amount of time for a sport to gain traction with the mainstream. One reason for this is that a love of a particular sport is often inherited from a parent or older sibling. Kids who grow up playing catch with their fathers in the backyard are likely to have an affinity for baseball, just as a daughter whose older sister played basketball may feel drawn to that sport from an early age.

According to O'Neill, many of his friends who grew up on the cusp of lacrosse's current surge in popularity are now passing their love of the sport to their children. They are signing their kids up for scooper programs that can start as early as kindergarten and taking them to games. Recently a close friend of his was looking for a way to spend a Saturday afternoon with his children when he realized there was a lacrosse game taking place at the University of Maryland.

Experiences like that are where a love of a particular sport begins, and if more players who were on the front end of the current lacrosse boom pass the love of the game down to their children, the sport could grow exponentially over the next decade. To the untrained eye, a lacrosse match may look like barely organized mayhem, but watch enough games and you are bound to witness the breathtaking athleticism displayed by its practitioners.

Part of the US national team program since , CEO Michele DeJuliis heads this league to increase female participation in the lacrosse sport at a national level. However, at the beginning of , the league made the decision to remove Fire through a restructure of players. Yet again, this is testament to the significant difference in the popularity of lacrosse in the USA and worldwide between the men and women in the sport. While lacrosse may not be the most popular of sports across the US, especially against the likes of football and basketball, recent predictions have suggested it could be up there in the near future.

These predictions say the popularity of lacrosse in the USA and worldwide could grow to match the fan base of other popular sports such as football in years to come. What we really have to focus on, is how this growth in popularity has come about in the younger generations of US athletes. Requirements to play lacrosse as a professional are not as strict or intensive as other sports. Unlike other contact sports, lacrosse is very safe. Despite using speed, movement, sticks and flying balls, the game relies on precision and has seen far fewer injuries in comparison to sports such as soccer and hockey.

The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program have produced a report to show lacrosse players experiencing two-thirds the number of injuries to soccer and one-tenth the injuries to football players.

With educational institutions adding lacrosse to their sports curriculum programs, it has become far easier for interested played to participate and engage in new sports, hobbies and games. While the popularity of lacrosse in the US has soared and succeeded, this has not been reflected on a worldwide scale. And, although popular in many western cultures, it is not enough to be included in the Olympic Games at a participatory and competitive level. This shows how different the popularity of lacrosse in the USA and worldwide can be not only between the genders but across locality, too.

In order to qualify and become an Olympic sport, lacrosse would need to have 75 countries across the world — and covering each continent — also wanting to participate. However, there have so far only been applications from 63 countries who are willing to participate in lacrosse at an Olympic level. In terms of the historical relationship lacrosse has had with the Olympics, it is very brief. This is because it was only considered in the St. Louis games of and the London games of In both of these global events, only five teams ever competed in lacrosse.

And, even then it has been consistently mistaken for hockey. Since then, lacrosse has been referred to as a demonstration sport. Successfully, lacrosse was used in the , and games, yet the same would have been the case in and if it were able to push through.

However, it is interesting that the sport has decreased in participation by nearly 7 percent in the last five years. I doubt we will ever see lacrosse have a major decline in New York, and I would expect the sport to continue to be wildly popular there.

It makes sense that the state with the highest number of participants would have trouble producing the same amount of growth as newer lacrosse areas, due to the fact that most people in the state are already aware of the sport. Based on growth statistics, however, it seems like the Midwest is currently the hottest place to be picking up the sport right now. A percent increase in players in five years in Illinois?

A 40 percent increase in players in Ohio? It definitely seems to be the trending sport to play if you live in the middle of the country. It would be great to see the data for the number of high school participants at the club levels in other growing states around the country and compare just what the actual rates of growth are in terms of number of lacrosse players at the high school level in any form of competition.

California, of course, has seen an incredible amount of growth itself, growing 26 percent in the last five years and having the second-most number of lacrosse players competing at the high school level. What really surprised me though, was the 12 percent decrease in participation in Colorado. It would be interesting to see the growth statistics for the youth programs and see exactly if this is a hiccup or a growing trend in the state. Not a good sign, though, if those numbers keep decreasing.

The number of children opting to play lacrosse has grown exponentially in the last decade. The sport of lacrosse has seen an increase in popularity across categories. Lacrosse is a sport that is played by men, women, and children, which adds to the popularity of the game. Lacrosse has various types of play According to the NCAA; lacrosse is the fastest growing sport, with more than 36, athletes playing at the college level.

Spring and summer are the seasons of lacrosse. There are lacrosse championships during the summer, and media outlets like ESPN increasingly pick these up. US Lacrosse reports that three-quarters of a million people played lacrosse last year.

Kids are opting to try a different sport from what they typically have chosen. In the US Lacrosse survey, boys and girls lacrosse grew by