rpowell wrote:Freddie wrote:baldyuplax wrote:I can only see whats happening at Durham as a good thing. Simply because it will hopefully encourage more universities to invest more money in their lacrosse teams.
I think what most people are afraid of is that due to Durham doing this in one huge bang and importing almost an entire first team, other universities won't bother. It would be huge financial risk for another university to follow suit when Durham have already done this and those players have at least 1 years experience of playing together. After all there isn't that much money to be made in University sport and therefore I can't imagine we would ever get enough Universities to put the funding needed in, to have a large 'BUCS Team America Lacrosse League.'
I don't believe most sports unions will feel that way. They are just as likely to think "hey, Mens's Lacrosse is an emerging sport, just got its act together with a Premier League - wouldn't take much investment to get ourselves a hatful of BUCS points..."
Yes, Durham won at a canter last season, and will probably do so again - but Nottingham got 35 BUCS points for 2nd place, and Oxford and Warwick took home 24 points for getting to a semi-final. Obviously these institutions would rather have had 1st place... but any points they can get are valued. And it's a lot easier\cheaper to move up half a dozen places in our sport than it is in Hockey, Rugby, football etc...
The five different AU's I've dealt with in my time at Uni would definitely agree with Freddie. The cruel irony of uni sports funding is that you generally have to prove you don't need the money (ie win the league unassisted) before the institution will invest.
Time will tell. Let's see how many other universities set up completely new lacrosse clubs as a result of Durham showing them the way this year