Johns Hopkins 2022

[flalax22]

Anyone thinking there is going to be mass exodus of Hopkins lacrosse players through the transfer portal this summer?

There are graduate players moving on and seniors with eligibility choosing not to return. Are any of the younger guys looking to jump ship? I haven’t heard anything yet but I’m curious and would not be surprised.

[masondixonlax]

Anyone thinking there is going to be mass exodus of Hopkins lacrosse players through the transfer portal this summer?

There are graduate players moving on and seniors with eligibility choosing not to return. Are any of the younger guys looking to jump ship? I haven’t heard anything yet but I’m curious and would not be surprised.

Listening to lacrosse podcast today and that's what the hosts made it sound like

[Homer]

There was a recent article on Major League Baseball. Apparently, MLB still takes in huge amounts of money from selling broadcasting rights. However, the ratings are terrible on the cable and streaming chanels. But ratings are not where the profitability comes from … instead, it’s the mandatory bundling of those MLB games as filler with other products that people actually watch.

In other words, people may only want to watch content A, B, and C, but the bundler also requires them to buy unpopular D, E, and F if they want the popular three. That’s where MLB games are—D, E, and F, which few people (except mostly old geezers) watch.

College lacrosse can be bundled the same way. You want college basketball and college football? You’ll need to pay for college lacrosse, college bowling, and college softball as well. Just a hypothetical example.

DocBarrister

That sounds like an interesting article, Doc. I'd enjoy reading it if you still have the link handy.

I'm an economic nitwit, really, but in general I'm not sure you can (lawfully) raise the value of stuff nobody wants to buy just by "bundling" it.

Like, if I go into Starbucks and ask for a coffee, and they say, "Coffee is $2.00, but you can only buy it bundled with a $1.00 DocBarrister cool shades temporary tattoo, so the total price of the bundle is $3.00," that's functionally the same as saying the selling price of the coffee is $3.00. If I'm still OK with buying, you could've just sold me the coffee at that price to begin with, and you wouldn't be out the $0.10 you spent to acquire the tattoo.

If I'm willing to buy a coffee for $2.50, and for some reason I think a DocBarrister tattoo is worth $0.50 but not $1.00, then you've made a sale, and if you want you can allocate $2.00 in revenue to the coffee and $1.00 to the tattoo and pay your suppliers accordingly. Presumably there's a reason for bundlers to do it that way, but the bundling here hasn't actually changed the market value of any item in your inventory.

The obvious complication to this basic model is: what if it's a monopoly seller? Then the upside potential of bundling is obvious! As is the potential illegality. I'm pretty sure I've reached the limits of knowledge when I say that how that would play out in any particular regulated industry "implicates antitrust law."

[Homer]

It seems to me the "growth of the game" has significantly decelerated over the last decade, and arguably hasn't had as much effect on the sport's hierarchy as it was once widely assumed it would.

I just want to point out that in the past decade there have been five newcomers to the Final Four: Brown, Denver, Ohio State, Penn State, and Yale. This spreading of talent makes it harder for any team to have consistent high-level success.

I'm not saying nothing of interest has happened over the last 10 years. Lots has! But if you cast your mind back to how people looked at Denver's rise in the early 2010s, I think there was a widespread sense that we were going to see more upstart programs surfing the wave of lacrosse's geographic expansion by effectively owning an emerging region. And that totally hasn't happened: Denver now seems like a one-off, attributed more to Tierney's singular genius than to the limitless potential of West of the Mississippi lacrosse.

Likewise, without wading too far into the Eternal Michigan Debate, I'll just say that if, circa 2012, you'd predicted the decade of results Michigan has actually had, that'd have put you at the very bearish end of the spectrum with regard to that program's anticipated potential.

But anyway -- why do I care? I'm actually much less invested in sorting through the fallout from the "growth of the game" than I am in recognizing it as a past-tense event, something that *happened* in the 2000s and early 2010s and can now be assessed in hindsight. If it's still going on -- not new people taking up lacrosse in unexpected places, which God willing will go on forever, but rapid disruption to the geographic and sociological base of the sport -- then who knows, maybe Maryland or Duke is about to step through a trap door and Hopkins just happened to get unlucky first.

But if what happened was that there was some turbulence, cups got rattled around, but after the plane stabilized everybody was still in basically the same seat except for one program that somehow moved 15 rows back -- then I'm going to say, Ok, sorry, those particular people just panicked and f---ed up. "Sometimes, when there's turbulence, stuff moves around unpredictably" has nothing to do with it.

[old salt]

doc,
didn't think you could have hotter takes than transformative class, top 10 yr end 2021 and by osmosis 2022 hopkins, but... kudos!!!

Brave new world ? ...Hopkins has one bad year & the world, as we know it, is coming to an end.

[old salt]

I won't say whom but Rutgers already has at least 3 transfers lined up, two of whom I am not sure are even in the portal, with hooks in a few more. Should be an interesting offseason. Let the games begin!

If that's true then Brecht has committed multiple NCAA violations. The transferring players could also lose their eligibility. Not sure I'd be talking about it publicly. As the portal becomes more common, the NCAA is going to start cracking down on these practices.

The NCAA is going to become more and more irrelevant, even in supposedly “non-revenue” sports like lacrosse.

Even the AD of tradition-bound Notre Dame is stating publicly that certain teams and conferences in FBS football are going to break away from the NCAA.

Imagine if ESPN somehow convinces the ACC, B1G, Patriot League, and Big East lacrosse teams to break away from the NCAA and participate in a more directly lucrative FBS-like championship structure. ESPN would set up a special NIL firm that would pay every player on each team’s roster, even the bench warmers, on a set scale, with the superstars raking in big cash.
______
Anyway, imaginings are done for now.

DocBarrister

I'll have what Doc is having.

(Doc, the BiG won't even televise its own men's lax tourney on Thursday. How can you possibly imagine espn being interested in such a thing?)

ESPN is just a stand in.

It could be a hedge fund or private equity fund or Elon Musk. Whatever ….

There is probably a way to monetize and profit from college lacrosse, to a much greater degree than anything being done today.

DocBarrister

Maybe you can get Paul Rabil to go after ncaa lax next.

[Homer]

Hopkins has one bad year

Which year?

[44WeWantMore]

There was a recent article on Major League Baseball. Apparently, MLB still takes in huge amounts of money from selling broadcasting rights. However, the ratings are terrible on the cable and streaming chanels. But ratings are not where the profitability comes from … instead, it’s the mandatory bundling of those MLB games as filler with other products that people actually watch.

In other words, people may only want to watch content A, B, and C, but the bundler also requires them to buy unpopular D, E, and F if they want the popular three. That’s where MLB games are—D, E, and F, which few people (except mostly old geezers) watch.

College lacrosse can be bundled the same way. You want college basketball and college football? You’ll need to pay for college lacrosse, college bowling, and college softball as well. Just a hypothetical example.

DocBarrister

That sounds like an interesting article, Doc. I'd enjoy reading it if you still have the link handy.

I'm an economic nitwit, really, but in general I'm not sure you can (lawfully) raise the value of stuff nobody wants to buy just by "bundling" it.

Like, if I go into Starbucks and ask for a coffee, and they say, "Coffee is $2.00, but you can only buy it bundled with a $1.00 DocBarrister cool shades temporary tattoo, so the total price of the bundle is $3.00," that's functionally the same as saying the selling price of the coffee is $3.00. If I'm still OK with buying, you could've just sold me the coffee at that price to begin with, and you wouldn't be out the $0.10 you spent to acquire the tattoo.

If I'm willing to buy a coffee for $2.50, and for some reason I think a DocBarrister tattoo is worth $0.50 but not $1.00, then you've made a sale, and if you want you can allocate $2.00 in revenue to the coffee and $1.00 to the tattoo and pay your suppliers accordingly. Presumably there's a reason for bundlers to do it that way, but the bundling here hasn't actually changed the market value of any item in your inventory.

The obvious complication to this basic model is: what if it's a monopoly seller? Then the upside potential of bundling is obvious! As is the potential illegality. I'm pretty sure I've reached the limits of knowledge when I say that how that would play out in any particular regulated industry "implicates antitrust law."

In Doc's example, there are two monopolies. First, MLB, which claims copyright over not only the broadcast, but also the action on the field, despite having neither Authors nor Inventors. Second, is the broadcaster which negotiates exclusive rights. As you note, in the absence of monopoly power, tying is destined to fail, or becomes simply an exercise in marketing and cost accounting (and possibly tax accounting).

[flalax22]

Hopkins has one bad year

Which year?

I was about to ask the same question. “One bad year” is laughable. There are standards and expectations with this program. Now do I think the landscape has changed and realistically the measure of success needs to be adjusted sure. But missing the tournament and middling along in the B1G is unacceptable

[DocBarrister]

There was a recent article on Major League Baseball. Apparently, MLB still takes in huge amounts of money from selling broadcasting rights. However, the ratings are terrible on the cable and streaming chanels. But ratings are not where the profitability comes from … instead, it’s the mandatory bundling of those MLB games as filler with other products that people actually watch.

In other words, people may only want to watch content A, B, and C, but the bundler also requires them to buy unpopular D, E, and F if they want the popular three. That’s where MLB games are—D, E, and F, which few people (except mostly old geezers) watch.

College lacrosse can be bundled the same way. You want college basketball and college football? You’ll need to pay for college lacrosse, college bowling, and college softball as well. Just a hypothetical example.

DocBarrister

That sounds like an interesting article, Doc. I'd enjoy reading it if you still have the link handy.

I'm an economic nitwit, really, but in general I'm not sure you can (lawfully) raise the value of stuff nobody wants to buy just by "bundling" it.

Like, if I go into Starbucks and ask for a coffee, and they say, "Coffee is $2.00, but you can only buy it bundled with a $1.00 DocBarrister cool shades temporary tattoo, so the total price of the bundle is $3.00," that's functionally the same as saying the selling price of the coffee is $3.00. If I'm still OK with buying, you could've just sold me the coffee at that price to begin with, and you wouldn't be out the $0.10 you spent to acquire the tattoo.

If I'm willing to buy a coffee for $2.50, and for some reason I think a DocBarrister tattoo is worth $0.50 but not $1.00, then you've made a sale, and if you want you can allocate $2.00 in revenue to the coffee and $1.00 to the tattoo and pay your suppliers accordingly. Presumably there's a reason for bundlers to do it that way, but the bundling here hasn't actually changed the market value of any item in your inventory.

The obvious complication to this basic model is: what if it's a monopoly seller? Then the upside potential of bundling is obvious! As is the potential illegality. I'm pretty sure I've reached the limits of knowledge when I say that how that would play out in any particular regulated industry "implicates antitrust law."

Here you go.

Casual observers may assume that despite this lack of popularity, baseball is still somehow insanely valuable. This is an illusion. Major League Baseball generated around $11 billion in revenue in 2019, but this figure does not accurately reflect the demand for its product. The astronomical salaries that continue to be enjoyed by the sport’s stars (if that is the mot juste) are a result not of the game’s nonexistent popularity but of the economics of cable television providers, who bundle regional sports networks alongside dozens of other channels so that anyone with cable TV is buying baseball whether he likes it or not.

Mike Trout’s $426 million contract is effectively being paid by millions of grandparents who just want to tune in to Anderson Cooper or “Antiques Roadshow.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/opin ... alize.html

DocBarrister

[OCanada]

This interview merits a read;

https://www.si.com/college/2022/04/23/n ... n-1-change

Mark Emmert president NCAA is stepping down attributed to big changes coming

Bill Self (KansasBB) has an interview talking about transfers and the NIL being out of control already and its just beginning, i think in SI

Seismic change is beginning. What form it will take is an open question and what the B1G will do is an even more open question as is where will Hopkins lax fit in a new world.

[runrussellrun]

Noticed that 13 of Maryland’s goals against Hopkins were scored by three transfers.

If Coach Milliman is aggressive on the transfer portal, he could increase the talent level on the Hopkins roster fairly quickly, as Rutgers and Maryland have done in recent years. More importantly, he could bring the right kind of talent and skills for his preferred playing style. I think he may need to do just that and get more aggressive in recruiting the right transfers.

Coach Milliman needs to show improvement pretty quickly next season. I suspect he will get at least two more seasons (maybe more) to prove himself.

But if he actually wants to enjoy his job rather than simply survive in it, he will need to do everything he can to bring the right talent to Homewood.

He won’t have time to build the program through individual recruiting classes, not in this new era of free agency.

DocBarrister

Show us a Hopkins "championship" team that did NOT have a transfer scoring goals. You can't.

carry on

[51percentcorn]

Listening to lacrosse podcast today and that's what the hosts made it sound like

Which podcast? And how would anyone know about a mass exodus yet? If you look at it by class - doesn't make alot of sense. I'm sure there will be a few - only 6 HAVE to be gone and 12 are arriving - if I counted correctly the current roster is 51 so if everyone else returned then you are looking at 57. One would think that Lyne will choose not to try to exercise his 2nd medical red-shirt since he's been here since 2017 so the starting number is 56. But Maher was off the roster and could return so maybe the starting number could then be back to 57 . Then of course there's the annual jhu06/Doc B Hopkins transfer portal draft - oh wait - that really doesn't exist - but maybe Hopkins picks up one or two. So you're starting point could literally be an untenable 59.

So given that Milliman has exhibited some behavior that indicates he believes those numbers don't work - there are very likely some players that will choose to leave the team and others unfortunately may have that choice made for them. That sucks.

The elephant in the room is of course the player that wears a jersey number between 31 and 33. It certainly didn't turn out like I am sure he expected or the fan base after 2019. It's too bad - sports can be mean sometimes. If he wants to play somewhere else - wish him nothing but the best. He's not a quitter - however - I am sure most think if he plays it will be elsewhere - but I wouldn't fall over if he was back.

[51percentcorn]

Show us a Hopkins "championship" team that did NOT have a transfer scoring goals. You can't.

carry on

Look - I think my opinion of Doc B is pretty clear but you are splitting atoms not hairs by counting Matt Bocklett's 1 goal in 2007 - otherwise everyone else was home grown - his point about transfers contributing greatly to Maryland's success is correct - his opinion that Hopkins can be more "Aggressive" in the transfer portal is Nonsense

[51percentcorn]

I'm not denying the impacts of Dressel/Schneck/DeSimone - no one can

Not sure who the transfers would have been on the '74 or 87 teams - there might have been somebody - I honestly can't think of who it might be

But you said it was impossible to name a Hopkins championship team where a transfer didn't score Goals - as in plural - and it simply didn't happen in 07 - and that's not to deny the impact of Bocklett - but that's not what you said

[Sagittarius A*]

Show us a Hopkins "championship" team that did NOT have a transfer scoring goals. You can't.

carry on

Look - I think my opinion of Doc B is pretty clear but you are splitting atoms not hairs by counting Matt Bocklett's 1 goal in 2007 - otherwise everyone else was home grown - his point about transfers contributing greatly to Maryland's success is correct - his opinion that Hopkins can be more "Aggressive" in the transfer portal is Nonsense

It's hard to compete for the top players in the portal when you are not a playoff contender.

[Sagittarius A*]

I'm not denying the impacts of Dressel/Schneck/DeSimone - no one can

Not sure who the transfers would have been on the '74 or 87 teams - there might have been somebody - I honestly can't think of who it might be

But you said it was impossible to name a Hopkins championship team where a transfer didn't score Goals - as in plural - and it simply didn't happen in 07 - and that's not to deny the impact of Bocklett - but that's not what you said

87 team was Larry LeDoyne who transferred from UVA.
Can't recall if he scored in the NC game, but he played an instrumental role that season and had some big games for the Jays that year.

[HopFan16]

Listening to lacrosse podcast today and that's what the hosts made it sound like

Which podcast? And how would anyone know about a mass exodus yet? If you look at it by class - doesn't make alot of sense.

It was the Barstool lacrosse podcast, the Crease Dive. Those guys don't actually know anything, they were just spitballing based off the Maryland drubbing. Could wind up being right but it's not because they have info.

According to InsiderRoll's most recent update, there aren't any Hopkins players in the transfer portal right now. There probably will be a few after the season, but I think those wishing for some sort of mass exodus are going to be disappointed. Like many other teams, there will be seniors who either decide not to exercise their additional year of eligibility or want to use it elsewhere. And then there will be some who are told thank you for your service but we need your roster spot back. Both players and coaches are well within their right to make those decisions.

[PulpExposure]

I also find the 13 goals line of thinking a bit disingenuous. Not just Doc B but Quint was saying the same thing on the telecast. Sure, it's factually accurate. But 5 of those goals were scored by Wisnauskas, who spent 1 year at Syracuse and 4 at Maryland. Yes, he transferred so it's technically true. But he never saw the field for Syracuse, his entire playing career is at Maryland, which is honestly a far different concept than Keegan Khan or Jonathan Donville, or "hitting the transfer portal" for one year stopgaps.

[masondixonlax]

I also find the 13 goals line of thinking a bit disingenuous. Not just Doc B but Quint was saying the same thing on the telecast. Sure, it's factually accurate. But 5 of those goals were scored by Wisnauskas, who spent 1 year at Syracuse and 4 at Maryland. Yes, he transferred so it's technically true. But he never saw the field for Syracuse, his entire playing career is at Maryland, which is honestly a far different concept than Keegan Khan or Jonathan Donville, or "hitting the transfer portal" for one year stopgaps.

+1. And even if they did get transfers so what? Any team can use the transfer portal and spare me the sanctimonious “we’re home grown” so we’re better. If Hopkins was smart they would be trying to do what Maryland is doing and anyone who complains about it is a sore loser.