Growth within Division III women’s lacrosse lags behind men’s teams

This article appeared in the D3lacrosse.net newsletter, March 7, 2025

Just as I did last week with Division III men’s lacrosse, I used publicly available filings with the Office of Postsecondary Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) tool to identify possible growth within NCAA Division III women’s lacrosse programs. Similar to the men’s side, the data observed shows growth in the sport across all measures, however, the magnitude of this growth pales in comparison to the increase in the men’s ranks.

To assess this, I compared the 2018-19 academic year (2019 season) and the 2022-23 academic year (2023 season) as it is the most recent filing. Data from the 2020 COVID season is skewed as operating expenses were considerably less due to canceled games. So, this is as close a pre-COVID look as we can get.

Specifically, I looked at three pieces of data for this analysis: average roster size, average operating expense per participant, and the average operating expense per team. Operating expenses are defined in the EADA report as: “all expenses an institution incurs attributable to home, away, and neutral-site intercollegiate athletic contests (commonly known as "game-day expenses"), for (A) Lodging, meals, transportation, uniforms, and equipment for coaches, team members, support staff (including, but not limited to team managers and trainers), and others; and (B) Officials.” In other words, nearly everything but coach salaries and athletic-related aid.

The data is in the table below.

Multiplying the number of teams in each season by the average roster size reveals an overall increase in participation of 238.77 total women’s participants from the 2019 to 2023 seasons. Recall that we observed growth on the men’s side of 707.34 total players during the same time period.

Roster size on women’s teams in 2019 ranged from 11 (n=2 schools) to 37 (n=1). In 2023, roster size ranged from a low of 12 (n=4) to a high of 43 (n=1). Thirty-three schools reported 30 or more athletes on their roster in 2023, compared to just 23 in 2019. Recall that men’s teams averaged more than 36 players in 2023, with 39 schools reporting more than 50 on the roster.

A participation statistic that jumped out was the standard deviation for the number of participants. In 2023, men’s teams (N=240) averaged 36.38 participants with a standard deviation of 11.76 while women’s teams (N=272) averaged 21.97 participants with standard deviation of 5.94. Roughly 95 percent of all observations should occur within +/- two standard deviations of the average.

With 240 men’s teams, the finding would suggest 228 (95%) of men’s teams should have between 12 and 60 participants (equivalent to +/- two standard deviations). Instead, we observed just 1.3 percent of programs (n=3) fell outside of this range, all with greater than 60 participants.

With 272 women’s teams, the finding would suggest 258 (95%) of women’s teams should have between 10 and 34 participants (equivalent to +/- two standard deviations). Obviously, 10 is too few to field a team. What we observed was 3.3 percent of programs (n=9) fell outside the range, all with greater than 34 participants.

Given that men’s teams had roster size variance in 2023 from 12 to 66, we could reasonably expect a larger number of outliers than on the women’s side, but that is not what was observed. In fact the mode (most frequently observed response) for women’s teams was 16 participants with 24 observations. The second-most frequently observed response was 17 participants with 23 observations.

The one area where women’s lacrosse exceeds the men’s game was in operating expenses per participant. Overall operating expenses are, of course, far higher on the men’s side due to the substantially larger roster sizes. Consider the table below:

Operating expenses per women’s team in 2019 ranged from just $4,212 (n=1) on the low end, to $124,929 (n=1) on the high end. In 2023, the low range of operating expenses per team was $8,561 (n=1) with a high end of $150,074 (n=1).

In 2019, 5 schools (compared to 17 on the men’s side) spent greater than $100,000 in operating expenses on men’s lacrosse. In 2023, 17 schools (compared to 44 on the men’s side) spent more than $100,000.