Ivy League Lacrosse Was Reportedly Offered A Fully Funded Bubble To Play This Spring And The Conference Basically Said "Take A Hike"
Larry French. Getty Images.Inside Lacrosse - Yale lacrosse alum, San Diego Seals owner and PLL investor Joe Tsai offered to cover the costs of the Ivy League hosting a men’s and women’s lacrosse bubble this spring, and facilitated the league’s access to an operator who successfully put on a lacrosse-specific bubble last summer, multiple sources have confirmed to Inside Lacrosse.
The league subsequently discussed the opportunity among its members’ university presidents and men’s lacrosse coaches, additional sources tell IL.
Sources say that while meaningful discussions occurred, they “never went anywhere.”
The 2021 college lacrosse season is underway. Teams like Duke, UNC, Virginia and Denver have all got at least 1 games in so far, and the rest of the country will get going over the next couple of weeks. Well…most, but not exactly the rest. Because what you won't be seeing this year on anybody's schedule is a game against the team who has played in each of the last 2 National Championships and have won one of them, the Yale Bulldogs. Most likely you won't be seeing Jeff Teat and the Cornell Big Red on anybody's schedule for much longer. Chances are you won't see any Ivy League team manage to compete this season.
And why is that?
Well it sure as shit is no fault of the players. And now we know it's not a financial issue either. Because now we know that former Yale lacrosse player, current co-founder of Alibaba, current owner of the Brooklyn Nets, and current billionaire Joe Tsai had offered to cover the costs of having a bubble to ensure that the Ivy League could safely have a way for their men's and women's lacrosse programs to compete this spring after already losing their chance to play last year. And the Ivy League's response to such a massively generous offer?
You have other conferences out here figuring out ways to make it happen. The ACC, the Big 10, Big East, etc. etc. All these conferences realizing that while this still less than an ideal scenario, they can make some sort of a season happen and give these kids the chance to play. Clearly that's not a priority for the Ivy League because they couldn't even be bothered to consider taking a fully funded bubble. And not even just financially funded, but Joe Tsai was going to have the Premier Lacrosse League help facilitate how to run the bubble since they successfully did so this past summer.
Still nothing. For what purpose could you possibly turn that down? Well here's what a source from that Inside Lacrosse article had to say…
IL - One person with knowledge of a men's lacrosse coaches' call with Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris tells IL that one reason cited not to pursue a bubble concept is that it would detract from the on-campus experience that university officials value so highly that their students — and student-athletes — receive. That person added that the vast majority of Ivy League students are either studying virtually from home or in their dorm room for the majority of their classes.
So the Ivy League doesn't want to send their student-athletes to go compete in a bubble because it'll take away from their on campus experience, meanwhile none of these kids are even on campus to begin with because they're all taking classes virtually. You know…for supposedly being the most academically elite group of colleges in the nation, they sure are being dumb as shit about this one.
Now I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are going to find it difficult to feel any sort of sympathy for Ivy League lacrosse players. I get it. The overwhelming public perception of lacrosse players still has some ways to go. But it sucks for these kids who clearly have the ability to make a season happen and the Ivy League officials are just too big of cowards to make it work. Bunch of dorks who should be ashamed of themselves.
P.S. - New episode of The Crease Dive coming out tomorrow featuring Jimmy Perkins from Robert Morris. Unfortunately we already recorded the episode before this article came out.