Lacrosse has a media problem — and it’s not about quantity. Lacrosse media coverage has never been more plentiful, with plenty of sites churning out game recaps and box scores. The problem is that almost none of it is worth reading. The sport has outgrown its coverage, and the people running it haven’t noticed.
The Actual Problem With Lacrosse Media Coverage
Pick any major lacrosse outlet and read five articles. What you’ll find is a genre of writing that could be called “official press release, but longer.” Who scored. Final score. Coach said the team competed hard. Players are excited about next week. Nobody says anything. Nobody takes a position. And nobody tells you what it means.
This isn’t journalism. It’s transcription.
The outlets doing this aren’t bad at writing — they’re scared. Scared of losing access. Scared of burning a relationship with a program. Instead, they sand everything down until there’s nothing left to disagree with, and wonder why their readership is flat.
Meanwhile, the lacrosse community — players, coaches, parents, fans who actually watch every game — is having real conversations. On Twitter, in sideline parking lots, in coaches’ group chats. Real takes about why a program is underperforming, why a coaching hire doesn’t make sense, why a rule change is ruining the flow of the game. That conversation exists. The media just refuses to participate in it.
The Access Problem Is a Cope
The go-to defense for soft lacrosse media coverage is “we need access.” If you write something critical, a coach stops returning calls and now you can’t cover the program.
Here’s the thing: lacrosse coverage is so thin that most programs are desperate for any attention at all. The access leverage that exists in NFL or NBA coverage barely applies here. Virginia isn’t freezing out a reporter because they said the offense looked stagnant in November. Maryland isn’t pulling credentials because someone pointed out they keep losing one-goal games they should close out.
The access excuse is mostly a habit borrowed from bigger sports where it actually matters. In lacrosse, it’s a phantom constraint that journalists have convinced themselves is real.
What’s Actually Missing From Lacrosse Media Coverage
Real analysis. Not “Maryland went 3-for-8 on clears” — but what that means, why it’s happening, whether it’s a personnel issue or a scheme issue, and what you’d do differently. There are coaches and former players who understand the game at a level that never makes it into print because no one is asking the right questions.
Accountability. When a top-five program has an early exit for the third straight year, that’s a story. Write it. Name the coordinator. Describe the tactical failure. The game deserves better than a “tough loss, we’ll learn from it” quote standing as the final word.
Opinions on recruiting, too. Not speculation about whether a kid is good enough — that’s off limits, they’re teenagers — but honest takes on which programs are building something and which ones are collecting commits without a coherent vision. Recruiting coverage right now is just announcement aggregation. Congratulations to the kid; the program context is the part nobody writes.
PLL coverage with stakes. The league is growing. Moreover, the talent is real. But most PLL writing treats every transaction like it’s equally significant and every game like it’s equally worth watching. It isn’t. Someone needs to write the piece that says Atlas had a bad offseason and here’s why, or that Chrome is actually built to compete this year and the odds haven’t caught up yet.
The Fix Is Simple, Just Not Easy
Have a take. Defend it. Be willing to be wrong. Write like you’ve watched a thousand games and you’re tired of pretending you don’t have opinions.
The lacrosse audience is sophisticated. These are people who played the game, coach the game, watch the game obsessively. They don’t need it explained to them. They need someone to finally say what everyone in the community has been thinking — with the receipts to back it up.
That’s not a high bar. It just requires caring more about the reader than about the next media credential.
Lacrosse deserves lacrosse media coverage that matches the quality of the sport. Right now, it doesn’t have it. That’s fixable — if anyone in this space actually wants to fix it.